68    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Under  the  new  regime  political  life  was  bound  to  become 
atrophied,  but  the  religious  life  opened  wider  and  wider 
possibilities.  We  cannot  here  go  into  all  the  details  of 
this  reorganization.  Idealist  though  he  was,  he  built 
here  as  always  upon  a  material  foundation.  The  fall  of 
the  state  religion  had  been  caused  to  a  large  extent  by 
the  neglect  of  the  priesthoods.  Those  priesthoods,  such 
as  the  augurs  and  pontiffs,  which  had  been  filled  with 
politicians,  must  be  taught  the  seriousness  of  their  reli- 
gious functions ;  those  which  did  not  permit  of  politics, 
and  had,  therefore,  been  neglected,  must  be  filled  and  kept 
filled,  and  the  dignity  and  honor  of  the  office  must  be  its 
own  reward.  But  if  men  were  ever  again  to  respect  the 
gods,  the  places  where  the  gods  were  worshiped  must  be 
restored  and  made  worthy  of  respect.  Hence  the  title 
which  men  gave  him,  "  Templorum  omnium  conditor  ac 
restitutor"  and  the  long  list  of  restorations  in  the  Monu- 
mentum  Ancyranum :  "The  temple  of  Apollo  on  the  Pala- 
tine with  its  porticos,  the  temple  of  Divus  Julius,  the 
Lupercal,  .  .  .  the  temples  of  Jupiter  Feretrius  and  of 
Jupiter  Tonans  on  the  Capitoline,  the  temple  of  Quiri- 
nus,  the  temple  of  Minerva,  the  temple  of  Juno  Regina, 
the  temple  of  Jupiter  Libertas  on  the  Aventine,  the 
temple  of  the  Lares  in  'summa  sacra  via,'  the  temple 
of  the  Penates  in  the  Velia,  the  temple  of  Juventas,  the 
temple  of  the  Magna  Mater  on  the  Palatine  I  built  .  .  . 
eighty-two  temples  of  the  gods  in  the  city  I  in  my  sixth 
consulship  rebuilt  according  to  senatorial  decree,  no 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       69 

temple  being  omitted  which  at  that  time  .had  need  of 
repair." 

But  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the  masses  more  was 
needed  than  priests  and  temples.  There  must  be  the 
splendor  of  the  cult  as  well.  Hence  such  a  performance 
as  the  Ludi  Sseculares  of  B.C.  17,  whose  stone  protocol 
we  have  preserved  to  us  with  its  "carmen  composuit  Q. 
Horatius  Flaccus"  and  the  poem,  too,  which  Horace 
wrote  has  been  saved  for  us. 

Thus  was  laid  a  firm  foundation  of  material  things 
and  old-fashioned  ideas;  and  now  Augustus  was  free  to 
build  upon  it  and  to  construct  such  new  things  as  might 
serve  his  purpose.  The  building  of  the  great  white 
marble  temple  on  the  Palatine  was  doubtless  the  most 
conspicuous,  but  possibly  the  least  fruitful  of  his  inno- 
vations. After  all,  Apollo  was  the  god  whom  Augustus 
himself  chose  to  worship,  and  whatever  influence  the 
Palatine  cult  subsequently  had  was  owing  more  to  its 
material  gorgeousness  than  to  its  spiritual  appeal. 

There  was,  however,  another  innovation  which  af- 
fected the  people  of  Rome  far  more  deeply.  This  was 
the  reorganization  of  the  worship  of  the  Lares  at  the 
street  corners.  These  shrines  to  the  Lares  Compitales, 
built  at  the  crossing  of  the  streets,  had  long  been  the 
centres  of  informal  political  clubs,  clubs  which  Julius 
Caesar,  for  example,  had  found  so  difficult  to  control  that 
he  had  foolishly  tried  to  suppress  them. 

With  a  magic  touch,  —  tact  in  its  literal  sense,  — 


O 


rt^  <-^i&tJi& 


THE  RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF 
ANCIENT  ROME 


THE  RELIGIOUS  LIFE 
OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

A  STUDY  IN  THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF 

RELIGIOUS  CONSCIOUSNESS 

FROM  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  CITY 

UNTIL  THE  DEATH  OF  GREGORY 

THE  GREAT 

BY 
JESSE   BENEDICT   CARTER 


AUTHOR    OF    "THE    RELIGION    OF    NUMA 


BOSTON    AND    NEW    YORK 
HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


191  1 


COPYRIGHT,    ipll,   BY  JESSE  BENEDICT  CARTER 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  November  zqii 


MORSE 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF 
HERBERT  FLETCHER  DECOU 


PREFACE 

THE  eight  chapters  of  this  book  were  originally  eight 
lectures  delivered  before  the  Lowell  Institute  in  Boston 
during  January,  1911.  Though  they  have  been  slightly 
recast,  their  character  as  lectures  has  been  preserved, 
even  at  the  risk  of  retaining  statements  which  are  more 
dogmatic  than  one  would  make  in  a  book  of  essays  writ- 
ten to  be  read.  But  the  theory  of  religious  evolution  here 
developed  is  put  forth  in  the  hope  that  it  may  arouse 
thought  and  discussion ;  and  to  this  end  a  positive  state- 
ment seems  desirable. 

In  the  first  three  chapters  I  have  made  some  use  of 
my  earlier  book  The  Religion  of  Numa;  and  I  wish  to 
thank  the  Messrs.  Macmillan  for  their  kind  permission 
to  treat  the  same  subject  again  in  this  connection.  In 
the  story  of  Christianity  I  have  received  much  help 
from  Monseigneur  Duchesne's  Origines,  a  book  where 
profound  and  critical  scholarship  is  marvelously  blended 
with  reverence  and  devotion.  In  the  later  period  one  is 
always  unconsciously  influenced  by  Gibbon,  while 
Gregorovius  and  Hodgkin  afford  many  valuable  sugges- 
tions. I  regret  that  Warde  Fowler's  Religious  Experi- 
ences of  the  Roman  People  did  not  appear  in  time  for  me 
to  make  use  of  it. 

I  wish  to  thank  President  Lowell  and  Professor  Sedg- 


viii  PREFACE 

wick,  Curator  of  the  Institute,  for  their  unfailing  kind- 
ness during  the  delivery  of  the  lectures,  and  Mr.  James 
Ford  Rhodes  and  Mr.  Thomas  Spencer  Jerome  for  en- 
couragement and  suggestion  in  connection  with  the 
book. 


In  the  midst  of  the  final  draft  came  the  news  of  the 
death  at  Cyrene  of  that  profound  scholar  and  lovable 
gentleman,  Herbert  Fletcher  Decou.  The  book  is  dedi- 
cated to  him  as  a  token  of  my  gratitude  for  the  privilege 
of  having  been  his  friend. 

JESSE  BENEDICT  CARTER, 

HOSPENTHAL, 

September,  1911. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 

ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS:  THE  RELIGION  OF  AGRICULTURE 
AND  THE  RELIGION  OF  PATRIOTISM i 

CHAPTER  II 

ROME  AND  GREECE:  THE  RELIGION  OF  SUPERSTITION  AND  THE 
DECLINE  OF  FAITH 33 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE:  SALVATION  BY  REASON 
AND  SALVATION  BY  FAITH 63 

CHAPTER  IV 

CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY 95 

CHAPTER  V 
JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE:  THE  TWILIGHT  OF  THE  GODS    .  125 

CHAPTER  VI 

AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD:  THE  STRUGGLE  OF  PAGAN 
AND  CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT 159 

CHAPTER  VII 

BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS:  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SAL- 
VATION OF  ANCIENT  CULTURE 197 

CHAPTER  VIII 

GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS:  THE  PREPARATION  FOR  THE 
HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE 231 


THE  RELIGIOUS   LIFE  OF 
ANCIENT  ROME 

CHAPTER  I 

ROME    AND    THE    ETRUSCANS:    THE    RELIGION    OF    AGRI- 
CULTURE AND  THE   RELIGION  OF   PATRIOTISM 

IT  was  in  no  spirit  of  idle  boasting  that  Rome  was  called 
the  "Eternal  City."  This  quality  of  eternity  is  mani- 
fest, not  so  much  perhaps  by  Rome's  great  age  as  by  her 
ever-present  youthfulness.  But  before  all,  it  is  in  the 
essential  quality  of  continuity  that  her  eternity  receives 
its  largest  measure  of  evident  probability.  For  at  least 
three  thousand  years  —  barring  one  interruption  of 
forty  days  —  human  life  in  all  its  manifold  phases  has 
been  unfolding  itself  on  these  hills  beside  the  Tiber,  and 
during  nearly  two  thousand  of  these  three  thousand 
years  all  the  rest  of  our  Western  world  has  looked  with 
awe  and  reverence  towards  that  place,  and  by  reason  of 
its  very  longing  to  be  present  there,  has  felt  in  its  heart 
that  vague  anxiety  that 

"  I  perchance  shall  never  come 
To  look  on  that  so  holy  spot 
The  very  Rome." 

Thus  it  is  that  thoughtful  men  have  sought  to  find  in 
the  history  of  Rome  a  kind  of   guidebook  of  human 


2     RELIGIOUS   LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

experience.  They  found  there  the  history  of  their  own 
past,  —  for  in  an  Occidental  world  we  are  all  of  us  the 
spiritual  children  of  Rome,  entirely  aside  from  our 
specific  religious  views  or  our  specific  physiological 
ancestry,  —  and  they  found  it  not  in  broken  segments, 
but  in  the  complete  whole.  >»  It  was  but  natural,  there- 
fore, that,  so  long  as  our  concept  of  history  consisted 
in  the  annals  of  wars  and  battles,  Rome  should  be  the 
great  text-book  of  military  history.  -And  when  we 
passed  from  this  naive  conception  to  the  study  of  men's 
political  relations,  it  was  equally  natural  that  Rome 
should  again  be  sought  in  the  hope  of  finding  there  the 
story  of  man's  political  development.  Yes,  there  were 
even  especial  reasons  in  this  case  because  of  the  well- 
known  talents  of  the  Romans  in  the  field  of  law  and 
political  organization.^ 

But  the  study  of  the  past  has  in  recent  years  pro- 
gressed beyond  these  formal  relations,  and  we  have 
come  into  the  sociological  age,  when  we  wish  to  read 
our  history,  not  in  legal  enactments,  but  in  the  pulse 
and  tone  of  the  masses,  and  even  of  the  individuals  who 
stood  behind  and  beneath  those  laws  and  edicts.  Finally, 
in  this  new  century  the  more  progressive  minds  have 
grown  weary  of  playing  with  purely  material  things, 
rich  and  profitable  as  the  harvest  of  those  things  has 
been,  or  even  with  matters  which  belong  on  the  sur- 
face of  psychology.  As  a  result  we  find  ourselves  to-day 
in  the  presence  of  a  widespread  interest  in  those  things 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  3 

which  pertain  to  religion,  to  religion  in  its  broadest 
sense,  as  a  feeling  of  dependence  upon  the  action  of 
powers  which  are  none  the  less  real  because  they 
are  in  the  main  unknown,  and  incapable  of  tangible 
proof. 

This  present  -  day  revival  of  religion  has  assumed 
a  great  variety  of  forms,  giving  rise  in  turn  to  those 
inevitable  animosities,  which  have  their  source  in  the 
essentially  individual  and  personal  character  of  reli- 
gious feeling.  It  is  possible,  however,  at  least  for  those 
who  possess  an  intellectual  balance,  to  rise  temporarily 
above  this  strictly  personal  attitude,  and  to  recognize 
the  great  truth  that  religion  is  a  normal  and  essential 
part  of  our  human  existence,  and  that  this  has  been  true 
in  all  time,  and  that  in  all  except  the  excessively  material 
periods  of  human  history,  this  religious  instinct  has 
been  the  greatest  propulsive  factor  in  our  human 
psychology.  Now,  if  this  be  true,  we  must  to  a  certain 
extent  rewrite  our  whole  human  history,  not  in  the  light 
of  any  specific  religion,  but  in  the  recognition  of  the 
strength  and  validity  of  the  religious  instinct.  In  the 
past  we  have  been  given  to  the  study  of  a  particular 
religion  or  to  that  jejune  discipline  known  as  Compara- 
tive Religion.  What  we  are  to  do  now  is  to  study  not 
so  much  a  religion  in  itself,  but  rather  the  effect  of  the 
impact  of  a  specific  religion  upon  the  psychological 
consciousness  of  a  people.  Our  interest  is,  therefore, 
not  primarily  in  the  content  of  the  religion,  but  in  the 


4     RELIGIOUS   LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

reaction  which  this  content  has  called  forth  in  any 
given  set  of  human  beings. 

The  history  of  Rome  offers,  perhaps,  the  best  field  in 
which  to  test  the  validity  of  these  considerations.  This 
book  is  the  result  of  the  experiment,  but  perhaps  I 
should  rather  say  that  it  is  not  so  much  the  result  of 
this  experiment  as  the  experiment  itself  which  we  are 
about  to  carry  out. 

But  first  it  will  be  well  to  say  a  few  words  about  the 
particular  reasons  why  Rome  offers  such  a  peculiarly 
favorable  field  for  our  experiments.  At  first  sight  this 
would  not  seem  to  be  the  case.  We  are  not  accustomed 
to  think  of  the  Romans  as  a  strongly  religious  people. 
Nor  have  the  students  of  Roman  religion,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  done  anything  to  remove  this  prejudice. 
The  religion  of  ancient  Rome  is  very  little  known  out- 
side the  narrow  circle  of  specialists  in  Latin.  Few 
attempts  have  been  made  to  interpret  it  to  the  larger 
public.  Even  the  students  of  the  general  history  of 
religion  know  little  of  Rome,  and  do  not  ordinarily 
include  her  in  their  generalizations.  Her  religion  has 
been  hedged  about  in  a  very  extraordinary  way,  as 
though  the  jealous  secrecy,  which  was  always  a  part  of 
it  in  the  days  of  its  life,  was  still  guarded  after  its  death 
by  the  wraiths  of  the  gods  who  have  gone  the  way  of 
all  the  earth.  And  yet  Rome  affords  an  extraordinary, 
even  unique,  opportunity  for  the  prosecution  of  our 
task. 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  5 

All  religion  is  by  nature  conservative.  In  all  its 
earlier  stages,  at  least,  it  makes  for  solidarity,  and  this 
solidarity  extends  not  only  horizontally  over  the  plane 
of  the  present,  but  it  extends  back  into  the  third  di- 
mension of  the  past;  and  conservatism  is  a  primary 
necessity  for  keeping  in  touch  with  the  past.  But  in 
the  case  of  Rome  this  conservatism,  this  faithfulness 
to  the  past,  was  felt  to  be  of  such  great  importance 
that  it  developed  from  the  status  of  an  accidental  at- 
tribute into  that  of  an  essential  quality  and  became 
by  degrees  almost  the  sum  total  of  religion*  "f he  mos 
majorum,  the  custom  of  the  fathers,  was  synonymous 
with  religion,  and  piety  had  its  psychological  as  well  as 
its  etymological  truth  in  the  relation  of  the  younger 
generation  to  the  older.  But  this  conservatism  is  very 
precious  to  us  in  our  study,  for  by  it  the  successive 
strata  of  Rome's  religious  life  were  preserved,  so  that  it 
may  be  said  of  her  that  in  a  sense  she  never  lost  any 
religious  form,  but  kept  them  all  intact  until  her  latest 
days.  This  is  quite  a  different  matter  from  the  inherit- 
ance of  instinct  which  governs  human  life. 

But  it  is  not  her  conservatism  alone  which  makes 
Rome  so  valuable  for  our  purpose.  There  is  the  added 
fact  of  the  richness  and  the  variety  of  her  religious 
experience.  In  these  eight  chapters  we  are  to'study  that 
experience  over  a  broad  span  of  years,  from  the  earli- 
est times  to  the  death  of  Gregory  the  Great,  and  we 
shall  observe  it  unfolding  itself  before  us.  But  it  will 


6     RELIGIOUS    LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

not  detract  from  the  dramatic  power  of  that  which  we 
are  to  study  to  come  up  for  a  moment  into  a  high  place 
and  look  down  upon  the  winding  path  which  we  are  to 
tread  in  the  course  of  our  investigation. 
-~  We  see  at  first  a  primitive  people,  whose  religion  was 
the  reflex  of  their  physical  interests;  we  shall  see  them 
dominated  by  a  power  farther  advanced  in  civilization, 
the  Etruscans.  We  shall  witness  the  birth  of  a  new  idea 
of  religion,  the  glorification  of  the  State,  the  patriotic 
instinct.  We  shall  see  the  coming  of  another  set  of 
influences,  the  presence  of  Greece,  which  was  to  soften 
and  civilize,  but  at  the  same  time  to  engender  a  spirit 
of  skepticism.  This  spirit  of  skepticism  was  to  be  fur- 
ther strengthened  by  a  marvelous  growth  of  material 
prosperity.  Thus  we  reach  the  close  of  the  Republic  and 
the  religious  conditions  which  are  best  reflected  for  us 
in  the  person  of  Cicero. 

Then  the  great  change  occurs,  not  primarily  the 
change  from  paganism  into  Christianity,  but  the  change 
from  religion  as  first  of  all  a  social  instinct  into  religion 
as  first  of  all  an  individual  matter.  We  shall  see  at  the 
same  time  the  rise  of  the  idea  of  salvation,  and  we  shall 
witness  the  two  contrary  solutions  of  the  problem,  the 
old  Greek  solution  of  salvation  by  knowledge  and  the 
Oriental  solution  of  salvation  by  faith.  We  shall  then 
behold  the  triumph  of  faith  over  knowledge  in  the 
establishment  of  Christianity,  and  the  reactionary  tri- 
umph of  mysticism  over  reason  in  the  person  of  Julian. 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  7 

Finally,  the  old  patriotic  instinct,  which  the  Etruscans 
first  aroused,  will  reassert  itself  at  the  capture  of  Rome 
by  the  Visigoths  and  we  shall  hear  the  answer  of  Au- 
gustine. But  in  spite  of  that  answer,  the  social  and 
patriotic  instincts  of  religion  will  triumph,  and  we  shall 
see  at  the  end  the  wondrous  way  in  which  they  received 
their  satisfaction  in  the  presence  of  the  unwitting  Bene- 
dict and  the  prophetic  Gregory. 

The  world 's  history  offers  no  other  such  variety  of 
religious  experience.  Without  this  experience  the  con- 
servatism of  Rome  would  be  of  little  use  to  us,  for  it 
would  preserve  at  best  only  a  few  forms  of  religious  life. 
While  without  the  conservatism,  the  richness  of  the 
experience  would  be  lost  for  us,  and  only  the  latest  forms 
preserved.  Our  field,  therefore,  seems  to  have  been 
justly  chosen,  and  we  may  go  forward  into  the  process 
of  our  experiment. 

The  Roman  people  belong  to  what  is  known  as  the 
Italic  stock,  a  term  by  which  we  designate  that  par- 
ticular offshoot  of  the  great  Aryan  race,  which  came 
down  from  the  north  into  the  peninsula  of  Italy.  They 
were  not  the  first  inhabitants,  and  they  did  not  find  the 
peninsula  empty.  For  lack  of  a  better  name,  we  call 
the  people  who  were  there  before  them  the  "Western 
Mediterranean"  race.  This  original  Mediterranean 
people  have  left  as  a  memorial  of  their  one-time  exist- 
ence the  dolmens  and  the  nauraghi  —  the  so-called 
tombs  of  the  giants  —  on  Sardinia,  Corsica,  Malta,  and 


8      RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME     , 

also  on  the  mainland.  It  is  possible  that  these  people 
left  the  Mediterranean  by  following  the  coast  line,  and 
finally  reached  Gaul  and  Britain,  where  they  are  per- 
haps to  be  identified  with  the  Druids,  and  if  so,  have 
left  Carnac  and  Stonehenge  as  marks  of  their  residence. 
But  we  know  nothing  of  the  religion  of  these  people,  nor 
is  it  likely  that  they  would  settle  so  far  inland  as  the 
city  of  Rome.  It  is  proper  for  us,  therefore,  to  begin  our 
story  with  the  Italic  stock. 

These  Italic  people  were  doubtless  scattered  all 
through  the  highlands  and  lowlands  of  central  and 
southern  Italy,  and  like  the  beasts  of  the  forest,  seeking 
a  salt  lick,  there  would  be  a  primitive  traffic  to  the  salt 
marshes,  particularly  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  Thus 
would  come  into  existence  the  "Salt  Road,"  the  Via 
Salaria,  probably  the  oldest  of  all  the  Roman  roads. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  this  Salt  Road  has  always 
played  an  important  part  in  Roman  history,  and  the 
point  where  it  enters  Rome  on  the  east  has  always  been 
the  vulnerable  spot  in  her  body.  It  was  there  that  the 
Gauls  came  in  B.C.  390,  the  Visigoths  in  A.D.  410,  and 
the  Italian  troops  in  1870. 

We  must  not  think  of  these  people  as  a  civilized  folk, 
dwelling  in  cities,  but  rather  as  a  barbarous  or  semi- 
barbarous  aggregation  inhabiting  the  hilltops,  and  sur- 
rounding their  little  groups  of  round  huts  by  some  sort 
of  primitive  palisade.  None  of  the  existing  stone  walls 
go  back  to  this  epoch,  and  this  is  not  because  these  older 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  9 

walls  have  been  destroyed,  but  because  these  people 
never  built  such  walls.  We  have,  however,  memorials 
of  their  residence,  that  strange  graveyard  which  was 
discovered  some  ten  years  ago  in  the  Forum,  near  the 
foundations  of  the  temple  of  Antoninus  and  Faustina. 
The  earliest  graves  there  go  back  into  the  ninth  and 
possibly  earlier  centuries,  and  the  latest  burials  seem 
to  have  taken  place  before  the  middle  of  the  sixth  cen- 
tury, when,  as  we  shall  see  below,  the  region,  in  which 
this  graveyard  is  found,  became  inclosed  in  the  city  wall. 
We  know  little  of  these  people  except  their  religion,  but 
concerning  that  we  are  fairly  well  informed,  thanks  to 
their  own  conservatism  and  to  our  modern  studies  of 
primitive  people. 

The  essential  feature  of  their  religion  was  its  social 
character.  Religion  was  not  a  personal  matter,  nay, 
it  could  not  be,  because  the  very  concept  of  personality 
was  in  its  infancy.  There  was  no  individual  initiative 
or  volition  in  the  whole  matter.  Man  did  not  choose 
his  gods  any  more  than  he  chose  his  parents.  He  was 
born  into  a  circle  of  gods  ready-made  for  him  just  as  he 
was  born  into  a  set  of  human  relationships.  The  ful- 
fillment of  his  duty  to  those  gods  was  a  normal  and 
natural  function  of  his  life.  These  gods  were  all  about 
him.  They  were,  to  be  sure,  not  gods  in  any  developed 
sense;  they  were  powers  unknown  except  in  so  far  as 
they  manifested  themselves  in  actions  and  things.  The 
thing  and  the  power  that  dwelt  in  it  were  inseparably 


io    RELIGIOUS   LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

connected.  Yet  the  power  was  not  the  thing,  nor  was 
the  thing  the  power.  Janus  was  the  door  and  yet  not  the 
door;  Vesta  the  hearth  and  yet  not  the  hearth.  Janus 
was  the  power  that  manifested  itself  in  the  door.  Thus 
with  Janus  were  associated  all  the  things  that  had  to  do 
with  the  door  both  in  its  physical  and  in  its  metaphysical 
aspects.  Janus  was  the  god  of  all  entrances  and  of  all 
beginnings,  and  thus  also  of  the  dawn  as  the  beginning 
of  the  day,  and  of  the  New  Year  as  the  beginning  of  the 
year.  Similarly,  Vesta,  who  manifested  herself  in  the 
hearth,  became  the  goddess  of  all  the  family  life  which 
centred  about  the  hearth. 

Man  felt  himself  surrounded  by  an  infinite  multitude 
of  these  powers.  He  strove  to  propitiate  them  and  to 
establish  an  acceptable  form  of  relationship  between 
himself  and  them.  Such  a  state  of  religion  is  usually 
called  animism.  It  develops  slowly  into  polytheism, 
when  the  spirit  (animd)  becomes  named  and  then  gradu- 
ally better  known;  that  is,  when  it  becomes  a  god,  in 
the  more  developed  sense  of  the  word.  This  process 
was  actually  fulfilled  in  the  case  of  these  settlers  on  the 
hilltops  of  Rome.  Gradually  this  infinitude  of  unknown 
powers  was  transformed  into  a  set  of  gods  whose  names 
were  known.  But  these  gods  showed  the  limitations 
of  their  birth.  Those  who  worshiped  them  knew  them 
only  in  their  activities.  There  was  no  play  of  specula- 
tion as  to  their  character  or  their  appearance.  They 
were  not  thought  of  in  the  form  of  man,  and  no  mytho- 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS          ii 

logy  or  genealogy  grew  up  about  them.  They  were 
little  more  than  names  for  powers,  powers  which  must 
be  put  in  motion  for  the  benefit  of  the  state. 

In  the  intensity  of  the  struggle  for  physical  existence, 
these  powers  must  be  propitiated,  that  man  and  beast 
and  Mother  Earth  might  bring  forth  plentifully  after 
their  kind.  This  physical  note,  this  instinct  of  propaga- 
tion, is  dominant  in  all  the  early  religion  of  Rome.  Let 
us  examine  it  for  a  moment  in  its  various  phases.  Before 
ever  there  was  an  organized  state,  before  ever  there  was 
a  settled  monogamous  family  life,  men  were  grouped 
together  in  brotherhoods,  "curiae."  This  organization 
continued  to  exist  in  later  times,  but  it  gradually  lost  its 
significance.  In  the  curial  worship  we  have  the  cult  of 
Janus  and  Juno.  This  is  the  prototype  of  that  cult  of 
the  Genius  and  the  Juno  which  was  carried  on  by  each 
individual,  the  Genius  of  each  individual  man,  the  Juno 
of  each  individual  woman.  Reduced  to  its  simplest 
terms,  this  is  the  worship  of  the  Genius  as  the  power  of 
procreation,  and  of  the  Juno  as  the  power  of  conception. 
But  Janus  is  the  great  creator,  the  divine  "Genius," 
and  in  his  union  with  Juno  in  the  curiae  we  see  the 
expression  of  the  powers  of  physical  reproduction. 

Similarly  in  the  other  relations  which  sprang  up  sub- 
sequently, that  of  the  gens,  the  family,  and  the  state, 
we  see  the  same  physical  interests.  Even  the  memory  of 
the  dead  is  guided  by  the  same  principle.  As  there  is  no 
individual  life  on  earth,  neither  is  there  any  individual 


12     RELIGIOUS    LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

immortality  after  death.    Each  man  at  death  passes 
over  into  the  majority,  that  mass  of  good  gods  (Di 
Manes)  who  live  the  bloodless  flitting  life  of  the  shades. 
But  even  here  the  universal  principle  of  procreation  is 
emphasized  again,  for   these  shades  clamor  for   their 
rightful  due,  the  sacrifice  at  the  grave,  and  this  sacrifice 
they  accept  only  at  the  hands  of  their  descendants. 
Thus  across  the  life  of  every  man  who  lives,  lies  the 
shadow  of  these  shades,  commanding  him  to  reproduce 
after  his  kind,  and  thus  to   escape  their  wrath.    It  is 
little  wonder,  therefore,  that  all  the  other  gods  of  this 
religion  are  marked  with  the  same  predominant  pur- 
pose.   They  are  gods  of  the  flocks  and  of  the  crops. 
\  There  is  Faunus,  who  makes  the  cattle  to  breed ;  and 
v  Pales,  who  gives  increase  to  the  flock.   There  is  Saturn, 
/  who  looks  after  the  sowing  of  the  seed,  Robigo,  who 
I    keeps  away  the  mildew;  Consus,  who  guards  the  har- 
vesting, and  a  host  of  others. 

Yet  for  all  this  vital  interest,  this  clinging  as  it  were 
to  the  feet  of  the  gods,  we  must  not  mistake  its  charac- 
ter. These  people  could  know  nothing  of  their  gods, 
beyond  the  activity  which  the  gods  manifested  in  their 
behalf;  nor  did  they  desire  to  know  anything.  The 
essence  of  religion  was  the  establishment  of  a  definite 
legal  status  between  these  powers  and  man,  and  the 
scrupulous  observance  of  those  things  involved  in  the 
contractual  relation,  into  which  man  entered  with  the 
gods.  As  in  any  legal  matter,  it  was  essential  that 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  13 

this  contract  should  be  drawn  up  with  a  careful  guard- 
ing of  definition,  and  an  especial  regard  to  the  proper 
address.  Hence  the  great  importance  of  the  name  of 
the  god,  and  failing  that,  the  address  to  the  "Unknown 
God."  A  prayer  was  therefore  a  vow  (votum),  in  which 
man,  the  party  of  the  first  part,  agreed  to  perform  cer- 
tain acts  to  the  god,  the  party  of  the  second  part,  in 
return  for  certain  specified  services  to  be  rendered.  Were 
these  services  rendered,  man,  the  party  of  the  first  part, 
was  compos  voti,  bound  to  perform  what  he  had  pro- 
mised. Were  these  services  not  rendered,  the  contract 
was  void.  In  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  gods  did 
not  receive  their  payment  until  their  work  had  been 
accomplished,  for  their  worshipers  were  guided  in  this 
by  the  natural  shrewdness  of  primitive  man,  and  ex- 
perience showed  that  in  many  cases  the  gods  did  not 
fulfill  their  portion  of  the  contract  which  was  thrust 
upon  them  by  the  worshipers.  There  were,  however, 
other  occasions,  when  a  slightly  different  set  of  considera- 
tions entered  in.  In  a  moment  of  battle  it  might  not 
seem  sufficient  to  propose  the  ordinary  contract,  and  an 
attempt  was  sometimes  made  to  compel  the  god's  action 
by  performing  the  promised  return  in  advance,  and  thus 
placing  the  deity  in  the  delicate  position  of  having  re- 
ceived something  for  which  he  ought  properly  to  make 
return.  This  "binding"  of  the  god  was  most  frequently 
accomplished  by  what  was  known  as  a  "devotio."  The 
leader  on  one  side  offered  up  his  life  for  the  cause,  and 


14    RELIGIOUS   LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

"devoted"  himself  as  a  human  sacrifice  to  the  gods  of 
the  world  below  by  riding  to  his  death  into  the  ranks 
of  the  enemy.  If  his  sacrifice  was  successful,  —  that  is, 
if  the  enemy  killed  him,  —  the  offering  was  supposed  to 
exert  an  almost  compulsory  power  over  the  action  of 
the  deity,  and  to  secure  the  victory  for  those  whose 
leader  had  thus  given  his  life  in  their  behalf.  To  carry 
this  curious  reasoning  one  step  farther,  we  may  remark 
that,  if  the  enemy  learned  of  this  project,  they  had  but 
to  open  their  ranks  and  let  the  would-be  human  sacrifice 
pass  through  unharmed,  in  order  to  bring  to  naught 
the  carefully  laid  plans  of  their  adversaries. 
t  In  this  scheme  of  things  the  function  of  the  priest 
was  that  of  the  expert,  the  legal  adviser.  He  had  no 
especial  advantages  so  far  as  the  gods  were  concerned. 
They  were  no  more  interested  in  him  than  in  any  of  the 
lay  members  of  the  community.  He  was,  therefore,  in 
no  sense  an  intercessor  between  god  and  man.  But  he 
had  given  his  attention  to  the  study  of  the  contracts 
between  man  and  god,  and  above  all  he  knew  the  name 
of  the  god  who  should  be  addressed  in  each  particular 
circumstance.  Thus  it  was  expedient  to  consult  him  and 
gain  the  benefit  of  his  knowledge. 

These,  therefore,  were  the  conditions  under  which 
the  religious  life  of  the  Romans  began.  The  object  of 
religion  was  to  gain  the  assistance  of  the  gods  on  behalf 
of  the  propagation  of  the  race.  These  gods  were  unknown 
powers  naked  of  almost  every  personal  attribute.  The 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  15 

relation  of  man  to  them  was  a  scrupulous  observance  of 
forms,  forms  which  had  been  handed  down  from  the 
distant  past,  and  whose  custodians  were  the  priests. 

We  must  conceive  of  our  early  Romans  as  passing 
hundreds  of  years  in  the  slow  development  of  these  con- 
cepts, living  mean  while  in  these  little  hilltop  settlements, 
for  Rome  as  a  city  did  not  yet  exist.  What  would  have 
become  of  these  people,  had  they  been  left  to  themselves, 
we  cannot  say,  for  they  were  not  left  alone,  and  a  great 
nation  was  already  on  the  way  to  help  them. 

Great  nations  like  great  individuals  are  always  mys- 
terious, and  no  man  has  ever  been  able  to  explain  satis- 
factorily the  greatness  of  Rome.  We  feel  her  greatness, 
we  see  the  results  of  it  in  action,  but  we  cannot  explain 
it,  for  its  causes  are  hidden  from  us.  In  Rome's  case, 
however,  we  can  point  out  at  least  one  obvious  element 
of  greatness,  her  willingness  to  learn  of  others.  No 
nation  was  ever  more  ready  to  accept  advice,  to  gain 
knowledge,  to  adopt  ideas.  When  we  stop  to  consider 
how  much  Rome  learned  from  others,  we  are  almost 
appalled.  We  are  familiar  with  what  Greece  did  for  her 
in  literature  and  art;  we  shall  see  later  in  these  chapters 
what  a  vast  amount  the  Orient  gave  her  in  religious 
matters.  But  we  have  never  fully  realized  the  contri- 
bution of  Etruria.  If  we  find  that  her  political  instincts 
and  her  governmental  training  came  from  the  Etruscans, 
we  may  well  ask,  "What  is  there  left  that  is  really 
Roman?  "  The  answer  is  not  far  to  seek.  Everything  is 


16    RELIGIOUS    LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

left  which  was  there  at  the  beginning.  The  miracle  of 
Rome  was  and  is  her  ability  to  preserve  her  individual- 
ity, not  as  a  thing  apart  laid  up  in  a  napkin,  but  to  use 
it  and  by  it  to  subdue  all  things  unto  herself.  She  did 
not  necessarily  always  improve  on  that  which  was  given 
her,  but  she  always  adapted  it  to  herself.  She  always 
transfused  it  with  her  own  individuality.  This  is  not  to 
detract  from  the  glory  of  Rome.  Properly  understood, 
this  point  of  view  really  increases  her  glory.  Her  essence 
lies  not  in  material  accomplishment,  but  in  the  possession 
of  those  forces  which  have  enabled  her  to  subdue  all 
things.  This  is  an  infinitely  more  lofty  possession  than 
a  merely  specialized  form  of  genius,  which  allowed  the 
so-called  original  progress  along  only  one  or  two  lines. 
Bearing  this  in  mind,  we  may  go  forward  courageously 
to  a  discussion  of  the  Etruscans  and  their  influence  upon 
Rome. 

It  is  not  many  years  since  the  Etruscan  problem  was 
a  complete  riddle.  To  have  spoken  of  it  at  all  would 
have  seemed  foolishness,  to  have  used  it  to  explain 
other  things  would  have  been  little  short  of  madness. 
Yet  entirely  apart  from  the  difficulties  of  the  language, 
there  has  been  a  steady  progress  toward  the  solution 
of  the  problem,  and  now  that  one  or  two  scholars  have 
had  the  courage  to  generalize  and  draw  conclusions  out 
of  the  mass  of  material,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  pos- 
session of  a  large  amount  of  co6rdinated  knowledge. 
There  are  several  conclusions  to  which  modern  investi- 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  17 

gation  has  led  us,  and  these  conclusions  seem  practi- 
cally certain. 

It  is  clear  that  the  Etruscans  were  a  composite  race, 
formed  by  the  blending  of  those  Italic  people,  who  were 
settled  in  that  part  of  Italy  which  we  now  call  Etruria 
or  Tuscany,  with  a  race  of  invaders,  who  came  doubtless 
out  of  the  Orient  and  were  probably  of  Oriental  origin. 
They  were,  therefore,  a  mixed  race,  with  all  the  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages  which  often  characterize  that 
status,  the  quick  sympathy,  the  wide  outlook,  the  rapid 
accomplishment,  offset  by  the  sentimental  diffusion  of 
power,  the  lack  of  intensity,  and  the  absence  of  perma- 
nence and  continuity. 

It  has  been  further  established  that  the  invading 
portion  of  the  mixed  race  did  not  enter  Italy  nearly  as 
early  as  had  been  previously  supposed.  It  used  to  be 
thought  that  they  had  come  into  Italy  not  long  after 
the  Italic  invasion  itself,  perhaps  eleven  or  twelve  cen- 
turies before  the  birth  of  Christ.  But  there  is  now  good 
reason  to  suppose  that  their  entrance  did  not  precede  the 
year  B.C.  800.  The  evidence  is  complicated,  but  it  seems 
conclusive.  Those  who  find  it  difficult  to  understand 
how,  coming  at  this  late  day,  they  could  have  worked 
out  their  architectural  development,  should  remember 
that  they  may  have  brought  a  very  large  portion  of  it 
with  them.  The  long  sepulchral  chambers,  with  their 
false  arching,  which  are  found. so  frequently  in  the  south- 
ern part  of  Etruria,  bear  very  strong  resemblance  to 


i8    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  graves  of  Lydia;  whereas  the  so-called  "bee-hive" 
tombs  are  somewhat  similar  to  the  nauraghi  of  Sardinia. 
There  seem  to  have  been  strong  commercial  relations 
between  Sardinia  and  Etruria  as  early  as  the  seventh 
century.  One  proof  of  the  interchange  of  products  is 
the  frequent  presence  in  Etruria  of  the  boat-shaped  vases 
which  are  peculiar  to  Sardinia.  In  all  probability,  there- 
fore, the  Etruscans  entered  Italy  about  the  year  B.C.  800, 
not  so  very  long  before  the  beginnings  of  Greek  coloniza- 
tion in  the  south  of  Italy. 

•  In  the  third  place,  it  is  clear  that  this  invading  race 
came  from  the  Orient,  and  also  that  they  came  by  sea, 
a  splendid  verification  of  Herodotus.  Not  only  would 
the  sea  route  be  the  natural  course  for  a  great  seafaring 
people,  but  they  have  left  traces  of  their  passage  behind 
them,  both  on  the  islands  of  the  northern  ^Egean,  espe- 
cially Lemnos,  Samothrace,  Lesbos,  and  Imbros ;  and  in 
Egypt;  for  though  the  famous  inscription  on  Lemnos  is 
of  a  much  later  date,  i.e.,  the  sixth  century,  the  exist- 
ence of  Etruscans  there  at  all  would  seem  probable  only 
in  connection  with  their  eastward  journey.  It  must  not 
be  supposed,  of  course,  that  this  journey  from  Asia  Minor 
to  Italy  was  undertaken  en  masse  as  a  great  maritime 
migration;  it  was  rather  the  gradual  westward  move- 
ment of  small  parties,  scattered  over  the  coast  line  of 
Asia  Minor.  Their  arrival  on  the  coast  of  Italy  would  be, 
therefore,  equally  gradual,  and  the  amalgamation  with 
the  native  inhabitants  all  the  more  easy  and  natural. 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  19 

Further,  it  has  been  shown  that  in  coming  out  of  the 
Orient  they  tarried  for  a  while  under  Greek  influence  in 
Asia  Minor.  Their  acquaintance  with  Greek  myths  is 
too  intimate  to  have  been  acquired  second-hand  and 
merely  through  the  medium  of  objects  of  art.  They 
must  of  necessity  have  spent  some  generations  ~m~a 
Greek  environment.  Their  very  perversion  of  Greek 
myths  is  a  sign  of  their  familiarity  with  them.  The 
myths  had  become,  as  it  were  by  adoption,  their  own 
personal  property,  and  they  unconsciously  adapted 
them  to  their  own  needs. 

And  lastly,  we  have  the  most  interesting  conclusion  of 
all,  for  it  seems  almost  beyond  a  perad venture,  that 
their  original  home,  or  at  least  a  very  long  abiding-place, 
was  Babylon.  Every  year,  as  our  knowledge  of  Baby- 
lonian religion  grows  greater,  we  see  stronger  and 
stronger  resemblances.  The  characteristic  feature  of 
Etruscan  religion  is  the  haruspicina,  the  art  of  divina- 
tion by  means  of  the  examination  of  the  entrails  of  the 
victims,  especially  of  the  liver.  Yet  this  is  a  purely 
Babylonian  method.  It  is  true  that  the  Greeks  too 
adopted  it,  but  with  them  it  does  not  precede  the  sixth 
century ;  a  time  when  the  Etruscans  had  long  passed  out 
of  Greek  territory.  Then,  too,  the  whole  idea  of  the 
templum  or  sacred  rectangle  in  the  sky,  and  its  division 
into  regions,  and  the  application  of  the  whole  to  the 
parts  of  the  liver,  are  at  once  Etruscan  and  Babylonian. 

These  are  the  new  and  almost  certain  facts  upon 


20    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

which  we  may  base  our  understanding  of  the  origin  of  the 
Etruscans.  Regarding  their  r61e  in  the  peninsula  of 
fialy  we  are  also  relatively  well  informed.  Their  power 
and  significance  seem  to  have  extended  over  a  period 
of  about  five  hundred  years,  from  B.C.  800  to  B.C.  300, 
but  long  after  this  latter  date,  and  in  fact  even  down  into 
the  Empire,  they  exerted  an  influence  upon  Rome.  They 
seemed  to  have  landed  first  on  the  southern  part  of  the 
Etruscan  coast,  near  Veii,  Tarquinii,  etc.,  but  they  also 
landed  further  north,  at  Cosa  near  Orbetello,  and  still 
further  north  at  Volaterrse.  They  were  a  seafaring  peo- 
ple, and  therefore  in  their  new  habitat  they  became  a 
city-loving  people,  like  their  much  later  successors,  the 
Lombards,  the  "Lords  of  Cities."  But  their  cities  were 
at  first  simple  affairs  surrounded  by  a  rampart  of  earth. 
The  stone  walls,  which  were  formerly  thought  to  go 
back  into  a  very  early  period,  are  in  no  case  older  than 
the  end  of  the  seventh  century.  They  are  a  develop- 
ment of  the  Etruscans  themselves,  and  are  probably 
contemporary  with  the  more  elaborate  architecture  of 
their  tombs.  Even  the  walls  of  Volaterrae,  which  give 
every  appearance  of  a  great  age,  must  be  younger  than 
the  graves  which  they  inclose,  and  hence  do  not  ante- 
date the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  which  is  about  the 
same  time  that  stone  walls  appear  in  the  ^olian  and 
Ionian  cities  of  Asia  Minor.  Similarly  in  Italy  itself  the 
walls  of  Norba,  which  seem  so  extremely  old,  date  from 
the  end  of  the  sixth  or  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century, 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  21 

and  the  venerable  fortifications  of  Alatri  are  not  much 
older. 

Gradually  the  Etruscan  power  extended  northeast- 
ward and  southward.  In  the  one  direction,  they  settled 
at  Tiesole,  Perugia,  then  across  the  Apennines  at  Fel- 
sina  (Bologna),  and  so  up  into  the  valley  of  the  Po. 
This  settlement  in  the  valley  of  the  Po  commences  in 
the  last  half  of  the  sixth  century.  Of  the  famous  league 
of  twelve  Etruscan  cities,  which  were  founded  there, 
only  three  are  known  to  us  surely  by  name,  Felsina  (Bo- 
logna), Melpum,  and  Mantua.  In  the  other,  the  south- 
ern, direction  the  Etruscans  founded  Volsinii  (Orvieto) 
about  the  end  of  the  seventh  century.  No  graves  have 
been  found  there  which  precede  the  year  600.  It  seems 
likely,  therefore,  that  this  was  an  entirely  new  Etrus- 
can foundation,  and  that  there  was  no  preceding  Um- 
brian  town  on  the  same  site.  It  must  have  been  at  about 
the  same  time  that  they  conquered  Falerii.  Falerii  they 
found  already  established  by  the  Umbrians.  But  they 
captured  it  and  gradually  increased  the  city  by  absorb- 
ing into  it  the  settlements  on  the  neighboring  hilltops, 
eventually  surrounding  the  whole  by  a  wall  of  stone. 
This  case  is  particularly  interesting  to  us  because,  as  we 
shall  see  in  a  moment,  virtually  the  same  thing  happened 
in  Rome.  Thus  the  Etruscans  descended  into  the  plain 
of  Latium  and  thus  they  come  into  our  story. 

It  is  not  likely  that  the  capture  of  Rome  was  at  the 
time  a  notable  event  in  their  career.  The  group  of  settle- 


22    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

ments,  out  of  which  they  were  to  make  a  great  city, 
was  at  that  time  of  no  especial  importance.  Here  where 
Rome  was  to  be,  they  found  these  more  or  less  defense- 
less hilltop  towns.  They  captured  them  and  united  them 
all  into  a  city  to  which  they  gave  the  name  Roma.  One 
of  the  most  interesting  of  recent  discoveries  regarding 
the  Etruscans  is  the  fact  that  this  word  Roma  is  itself 
of  Etruscan  origin,  and  is  connected  with  the  name  of 
an  Etruscan  gens.  Thus,  though  Romulus  never  existed, 
the  gens  Romulia  did,  and  it  was  their  name  which  was 
given  to  Rome.  Thus  Rome  was  born,  Rome  the  city, 
as  distinguished  from  the  cluster  of  hilltop  towns.  But 
it  was  not  alone  in  the  name  of  the  city  that  the  Etruscan 
element  has  made  itself  at  home  in  the  vocabulary. 
The  Tiber,  so  often  called  the  Tuscus  amnis,  itself  bears 
an  Etruscan  name,  as  do  at  least  two  of  the  old  gates  of 
the  city:  Porta  Ratumenna,  and  Porta  Capena;  as  well 
as  the  three  old  tribes,  the  Tities,  the  Ramnes,  and  the 
Luceres.  Legend  has  preserved  but  scanty  memorials  of 
this  founding  of  Rome.  The  four  older  kings  of  Rome 
are  merely  mythical  personages,  invented  centuries  after 
their  time,  but  there  may  be  a  certain  value  in  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  later  kingdom,  in  so  far  as  it  recognizes  the 
presence  of  the  Etruscans  in  Rome,  and  gives  us  at 
least  the  one  historical  figure  of  Servius  Tullius. 

It  was  about  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  before 
Christ  when  the  Etruscans  founded  Rome.  The  grave- 
yard in  the  Forum  corroborates  this  date,  for,  with  the 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  23 

creation  of  a  city,  burial  inside  the  wall  and  near  the 
market-place  would  be  impossible.  In  point  of  fact  the 
latest  graves  actually  date  from  about  the  middle  of 
this  sixth  century. 

Of  the  character  of  their  conquest,  whether  peaceable 
or  forcible,  we  have  no  knowledge,  though  the  indica- 
tions seem  to  point  to  a  peaceable  relationship  between 
them  and  the  original  settlers.  Eventually  this  power 
came  to  an  end,  but  whether  by  revolution  or  by  con- 
stitutional change  we  cannot  say.  The  traditional  date, 
B.C.  509,  has  only  artificial  value  and  is  probably  too 
early,  while  the  story  of  the  last  Tarquin  is  pure  legend, 
and  the  change  from  kings  to  consuls  may  have  been  an 
altogether  peaceful  one.  It  does  not,  however,  suffice  us 
to  know  the  facts,  we  must  allow  them  to  take  hold  on  our 
preconceived  opinions :  for  most  of  us  hold  entirely  false 
views  concerning  the  power  and  influence  of  the  Etrus- 
cans. The  records  which  they  have  left  behind  them  are 
chiefly  works  of  art;  and  this  art  is  characterized  by 
such  an  extraordinary  sensuality  that  we  think  of  the 
Etruscans  as  a  decadent  people.  But  this  is  entirely 
wrong,  and  the  reasons  why  we  fall  into  this  error  are 
twofold.  We  fail  to  appreciate  the  Oriental  element  in 
the  Etruscans.  We  make  the  common  error  of  forget- 
ting that  what  would  be  sensual  in  an  Occidental  is  merely 
sensuous  in  an  Oriental ;  and  is  in  his  case  a  sign  neither 
of  weakness  nor  of  effeteness.  Then,  too,  we  fail  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  Etruscans  of  the  sixth  century 


24    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

and  those  of  the  fourth.  Yet  there  is  a  vast  difference  in 
the  type  of  Greek  art  which  they  preferred.  When  Tar- 
quin  or  Servius  Tullius,  or  whoever  he  was,  founded  the 
city  of  Rome,  the  Etruscans  were  a  strong  and  virile 
people,  and  their  influence  upon  Rome  would  be  abso- 
lutely of  the  same  character;  and  even  though  this 
Etruscan  culture  was  superficial,  it  was  the  product  of 
a  certain  amount  of  experience,  and  along  with  it  went 
a  very  high  degree  of  efficiency  and  an  extraordinary 
power  of  organization. 

Thus  begins  a  marvelously  interesting  period  in  Rome's 
development.  It  is  a  very  curious  fact  that  the  Romans 
themselves  always  frankly  admitted  their  debt  to 
Etruria.  Tradition  made  no  attempt  to  conceal  it;  but 
in  spite  of  this  the  modern  historians  of  Rome  have 
very  largely  underestimated  the  extent  and  character 
of  the  Etruscan  influence.  Just  as  in  the  last  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  progress  in  Roman  history  was 
made  by  emphasizing  the  distinction  between  Greece 
and  Rome,  and,  by  eliminating  the  Greek  elements,  ob- 
taining an  idea  of  Rome  before  Greece  influenced  her; 
thus  in  the  twentieth  century  scholars  are  to  take  this 
supposedly  pure  Roman  product  from  which  Greece  has 
been  removed,  and,  analyzing  it  further  into  Italic  and 
Etruscan,  to  eliminate  the  Etruscan  and  thus  arrive  one 
step  farther  back  in  the  process. 

The  bald  fact  of  the  matter  is  this.  We  have  in  the 
primitive  Roman  people,  who  are  interested  only  in  pas- 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  25 

toral  and  agricultural  life,  a  semicivilized  people,  whose 
religion  is  at  best  only  an  advanced  form  of  animism,  and 
whose  religious  instincts  are  concentrated  in  the  concep- 
tion of  physical  reproduction.  There  are  visible  only  the 
most  rudimentary  ideas  of  patriotic  or  political  import. 
And  yet  within  a  relatively  short  time  these  people  come 
forth  into  history  filled  with  a  stanch  and  invincible 
sense  of  nationality.  The  religion  of  physical  increase 
has  given  place  to  the  religion  of  patriotism.  Now,  when 
we  examine  more  closely,  we  see  that  all  these  political 
ideas  are  centred  in  the  cult  of  Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus 
on  the  Capitoline  —  and  yet  this  cult  is  demonstrably 
Etruscan  in  origin.  The  inference  is  therefore  inevitable. 
The  people  who  introduced  this  Jupiter  cult  have  suc- 
ceeded in  arousing  this  patriotic  instinct  among  the 
Romans,  and  this  instinct,  true  to  its  origin,  as  is  the 
nature  of  instincts,  remained  inseparably  connected  with 
the  cult  in  which  it  had  its  rise. 

Let  us  look  at  this  matter  more  in  detail.  When  the 
Etruscan  wanderers  girt  the  little  hilltop  towns  with  the 
wall,  and  created  a  veritable  city,  they  chose  as  their 
citadel  the  Gapitoline  Hill,  probably  because  it  was 
capable  of  being  more  strongly  fortified  than  the  other 
hills  of  Rome.  On  this  citadel  they  built  their  temple, 
a  temple  to  that  holy  trinity  of  Jupiter,  Juno,  and 
Minerva  —  a  trinity  of  which  we  have  almost  no  trace 
in  Greece,  but  which  is  constantly  seen  in  Etruscan  art. 
We  are  told  that  it  was  an  Etruscan  temple,  and  that 


26    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  Tuscan  workmen  who  built  it  lived  at  the  foot  of 
the  Capitoline  in  that  street  which  was  forever  named 
after  them,  the  Vicus  Tuscus.  Not  only  was  the  trinity 
a  new  idea  to  the  Romans,  but  at  least  one  of  the  three 
gods  was  an  entire  stranger,  and  had  never  before  been 
worshiped  publicly  in  Rome.  This  was  the  Goddess 
Minerva.  Her  original  home  seems  to  have  been  Falerii, 
that  romantically  situated  town  on  the  right  side  of  the 
Tiber,  whose  modern  name  is  Civita  Castellana.  Wor- 
shiped there  as  the  protectress  of  handicraft  and  the 
workingman,  her  cult  seems  to  have  wandered  into 
Etruria.  There,  or  even  perhaps  under  Etruscan  in- 
fluence in  Falerii  itself,  the  trinity  of  Jupiter,  Juno, 
and  Minerva  was  formed,  a  trinity  which  was  destined 
to  become  so  typical  of  Rome  that  it  was  imitated  in 
the  capitolia  of  Italy,  and  in  those  of  even  the  farthest 
provinces. 

It  is  difficult  to  refrain  from  drawing  a  picture  of 
those  busy  days  in  the  new  Rome,  but  the  darkness  is 
too  intense  and  the  danger  of  unbridled  imagination  too 
great.  Yet  we  are  not  without  gleams  of  light.  One  such 
friendly  ray  is  the  relation  of  the  Etruscans  to  the  Latin 
league.  This  venerable  league,  to  which  the  hilltop 
towns  of  Rome  well  may  have  belonged,  but  of  which 
they  were  certainly  a  very  minor  part,  became  at  once 
an  object  of  interest  to  the  Etruscans.  We  do  not  know 
how  long  it  took  them  to  gain  an  important  position  in 
the  councils  of  the  league;  but  it  cannot  have  been  very 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  27 

long,  for  the  temple  on  the  Alban  Mount,  whose  founda- 
tions are  still  to  be  seen,  was  built  at  about  the  same  time 
and  by  the  same  people  who  constructed  the  temple  on 
the  Capitoline.  Thus  we  see  Rome,  led  by  the  hand 
of  the  Etruscans,  beginning  the  conquest  of  Italy.  The 
power  of  the  Etruscans  in  the  affairs  of  the  Latin  league 
seems  to  have  grown  apace,  for  it  was  not  long  before  the 
temple  of  Diana,  which  was  to  be  a  common  meeting- 
place  for  the  league,  was  built  on  the  Aventine.  Diana 
herself  was  in  no  wise  related  to  either  Etruscans  or  Ro- 
mans. She  was  merely  a  wood  goddess  of  fertility,  who 
was  worshiped  in  the  grove  of  Nemi.  But  this  grove 
was  near  Ariccia,  and  thus  she  was  the  great  goddess  of 
Ariccia.  When,  therefore,  in  the  course  of  time  Ariccia 
became  an  important  factor  in  the  Latin  League,  her 
goddess  became  the  goddess  of  the  league.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  the  Etruscans  proposed  the  temple  on  the 
Aventine,  and  thus  Diana  came  to  Rome,  where  she  was 
to  live  an  interesting  and  eventful  life  and  later  to  be- 
come identified  with  Artemis. 

In  the  building  of  the  walls  of  Rome,  the  Etruscans 
performed  an  act  which  was  destined  to  be  of  great  im- 
portance in  the  subsequent  history  of  Rome.  They  built 
not  only  a  material  wall  of  stone,  but  they  drew  first  of 
all  a  magic  circle  around  the  space  where  the  city  wall  was 
to  be  placed.  This  magic  circle  is  called  the  pomerium. 
It  was  in  a  sense  the  god  wall,  in  so  far  as  it  served  as  a 
defense  against  the  foreign  gods.  None  but  the  gods  of 


28    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  state  —  that  is,  the  Etruscan- Roman  state  —  might 
be  worshiped  publicly  inside  this  pomerium.  Varro  tells 
us  that  this  drawing  of  the  pomerium  line  was  an  essen- 
tial feature  of  the  Etruscan  ritual  of  founding  cities. 
He  describes  the  ritual  to  us  as  it  was  probably  pre- 
served in  his  day  and  still  practiced  in  the  establish- 
ment of  colonies  in  the  provinces  (Lingua  Latina,  v, 
143) :  "They  founded  towns  in  Latium  according  to  the 
Etruscan  ritual ;  that  is,  with  a  bull  and  a  cow  yoked  to- 
gether, they  drew  a  furrow  in  a  circle,  turning  the  sod 
toward  the  centre  of  the  circle.  This  they  did  for  re- 
ligious reasons,  on  a  favorable  day,  that  they  might  be 
fortified  by  a  trench  and  a  wall.  And  the  place  from 
which  they  ploughed  the  dirt,  they  called  the  trench, 
and  the  clods  themselves  the  wall." 

This  pomerium  was  to  play  a  great  r61e  in  subsequent 
Roman  history.  For  centuries  the  theory  was  to  be  kept 
inviolate,  and  only  the  excitement  of  the  Second  Punic 
War  was  to  lessen  the  sacredness  so  that  certain  Greek 
deities  were  admitted.  But  even  then  it  existed  as  a 
barrier  to  certain  Oriental  cults  until  the  time  of  Cara- 
calla,  when  he,  who  gave  Roman  citizenship  to  the  in- 
habitants of  the  provinces,  gave  also  divine  citizenship 
and  a  residence  inside  the  city  of  Rome  to  the  provin- 
cial gods. 

No  part  of  the1  physical  wall  of  stone,  which  the 
Etruscans  built,  has  been  preserved  to  us,  though  some 
of  the  blocks  which  were  in  it  may  be  found  to-day 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS  29 

in  the  so-called  Servian  wall.  This  so-called  Servian 
Wall  seems  to  have  been  built  after  the  Gallic  catastro- 
phe (i.e.,  after  B.C.  390).  The  real  Servian  Wall  must 
have  inclosed  a  much  smaller  space.  For  example,  the 
false  Servian  Wall  included  the  Aventine;  which  must 
have  been  outside  the  city  wall  in  the  days  of  the  Etrus- 
can domination.  Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  tra- 
ditional and  current  views  of  the  foundation  of  Rome 
will  realize  that  the  view  here  adopted  is  entirely  at 
variance  with  this  tradition.  The  old  idea  posits  the 
Palatine  as  the  original  source  of  Rome,  and  then  traces 
the  growth  of  the  city  by  the  gradual  incorporation  of 
the  various  other  settlements,  one  after  another.  En- 
tirely aside  from  the  fact  that  the  supposed  antiquity  of 
the  Palatine  dates  from  a  relatively  late  period,  when  it 
began  to  be  a  popular  and  fashionable  residence  quarter 
of  Rome,  this  whole  theory  of  gradual  incorporation  is 
also  of  late  origin,  and  palpably  produced  under  the 
inspiration  of  Greek  models,  especially  Athenian.  The 
Palatine  was  doubtless  one  of  the  old  hilltop  settlements ; 
but  we  have  no  means  of  dating  these  settlements  one 
over  against  the  other,  nor  have  we  any  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  any  one  of  them  at  any  time  became,  as  it 
were,  the  mother-cell  out  of  which  the  city  grew. 

The  education  which  the  Etruscans  gave  to  the  Ro- 
mans did  not  stop  with  this  new  idea  of  the  pomerium. 
They  introduced  to  them  their  own  developed  system 
of  surveying,  especially  in  its  application  to  augury.  It 


30    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

is  doubtless  true  that  the  Romans  had  long  observed 
the  flight  of  birds  as  a  means  of  ascertaining  the  will  of 
the  gods,  but  the  Etruscans  taught  them  the  additional 
refinement  of,  as  it  were,  surveying  the  heavens  and 
drawing  certain  imaginary  lines,  with  relation  to  which 
the  flight  of  birds  would  then  be  observed.  Such  a  celes- 
tial quadrangle,  or  its  terrestrial  counterpart,  drawn  on 
the  surface  of  the  earth,  is  called  a  templum;  and  a  build- 
ing thus  ritually  inclosed  is,  strictly  speaking,  a  temple. 
But  this  same  idea  of  the  quadrangle,  divided  in  turn 
into  various  regions,  is  also  applied  to  the  liver  of  the 
animals  slain  in  sacrifice,  and  thus  arises  the  celebrated 
science  of  the  haruspicina. 

It  is  extremely  interesting  to  note  that,  docile  as  the 
Romans  seem  to  have  been  in  relation  to  those  things 
which  the  Etruscans  were  ready  to  teach  them,  they 
took  very  slowly  to  the  idea  of  consulting  the  liver. 
Even  to  the  latest  times  it  was  felt  to  be  a  foreign  thing, 
and  though  in  these  later  days  its  fascination  was  for 
that  very  reason  great,  the  feeling  of  strangeness  was 
never  quite  lost.  Just  as  in  our  next  chapter  we  shall  see 
the  Romans  making  use  of  a  set  of  Greek  oracles,  es- 
pecially in  times  of  national  peril,  so  on  the  occasion 
of  terrifying  prodigies,  we  find  in  Livy  more  and  more 
frequent  recurrence  of  the  expression  that  the  state 
"  summoned  haruspices  from  Etruria."  On  their  own 
part  the  haruspices  were  clever  enough  to  study  Roman 
religion,  in  order  that  their  science  might  be  more  skill- 


ROME  AND  THE  ETRUSCANS          31 

fully  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  Romans,  and  in  all 
their  dealings  they  showed  such  a  broad-minded  reli- 
gious tolerance  that  Varro  (Lingua  Latino,,  vn,  88)  tells 
us,  "the  Haruspex  ordains  that  each  man  should  make 
the  sacrifice  according  to  his  own  custom."  Then,  too, 
the  haruspicina  was  in  many  cases  more  convenient 
and  in  all  cases  more  accurate  than  the  observation  of 
the  flight  of  birds.  Possibly  the  fact  that  the  haruspex 
was,  at  least  in  later  times,  more  of  a  specialist  than  the 
augur,  may  also  have  contributed  to  his  exaltation. 

Thus  having  received  their  primary  education,  the 
Romans  were  ready  to  rise  in  their  might  and  cast  away 
those  who  had  taught  them.  For  at  a  certain  period  of 
development  such  a  reaction  seems  to  be  instinctive, 
and  ought  not  to  be  attributed  to  a  culpable  lack  of 
moral  sense.  We  do  not  look  for  gratitude  in  the  young. 
In  Rome's  case  we  do  not  know  in  exactly  what  form  this 
reaction  took  place.  To  a  certain  extent  it  must  have 
been  the  gradual  growth  of  Rome's  own  self-conscious- 
ness. But  the  Etruscans,  as  a  mixed  race,  may  have 
paid  the  price  of  their  ability  by  being  early  enfeebled. 
In  any  case  the  fact  remains  that,  by  the  beginning  of 
the  second  century  before  Christ,  they  had  become 
merely  an  interesting  survival;  and  the  great  mass  of 
them  had  traveled  out  of  Italy  to  the  north  into  the 
Rhaetian  Alps,  where  the  other  Rome,  the  little  town  of 
Rom  near  Innsbruck,  bears  witness  to  their  presence. 

They  had  accomplished  for  Rome  their  appointed 


32    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

work.  They  had  raised  her  out  of  a  semibarbarous  con- 
dition, with  a  religious  consciousness  which  saw  no 

._   c» 

farther  than  the  physical  needs  of  existence,  into  at 
least  the  awakening  realization  of  a  patriotic  purpose. 
Life  no  longer  consisted  merely  in  the  multitude  of  the 
things  which  a  man  hath.  This  physical  strength  must 
be  put  to  work  and  employed  in  the  service  of  some  useful 
purpose.  This  purpose  was  as  yet  undefined,  but  it  was 
instinctively  there.  It  was  the  creation  of  the  Roman 
state.  How  transfixed  these  men  would  have  been,  had 
they  been  able  to  look  ahead  for  a  stretch  of  six  hundred 
years  and  to  see  these  beginnings  develop  into  the 
great  Roman  Empire  of  Trajan's  day,  and  then  again 
for  another  stretch,  this  time  for  a  thousand  years,  into 
the  still  more  mysterious  Holy  Roman  Empire. 

But  at  the  moment  they,  like  all  well-balanced  per- 
sons, were  engaged  with  the  problem  in  hand.  They 
were  fighting  their  way  to  the  possession  of  Latium,  and 
they  were  becoming  increasingly  interested  in  a  certain 
people  in  southern  Italy.'  These  people  were  the  Greeks, 
and,  thanks  to  the  Etruscans,  the  Romans  were  now 
capable  of  at  least  a  certain  limited  comprehension  of 
them. 

How  they  became  acquainted  with  the  Greeks,  and 
what  an  extraordinary  effect  this  acquaintance  had 
upon  their  religious  consciousness,  will  be  the  subject 
of  our  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  II 

ROME  AND  GREECE:  THE  RELIGION  OF  SUPERSTI- 
TION AND  THE  DECLINE  OF  FAITH 

THERE  are  few  subjects  in  the  world  in  which  divisions 
and  epochs  seem  so  senseless  as  in  this  subject  of  ours 
—  the  history  of  the  religious  life  of  the  Romans.  By 
virtue  of  the  fact  that  it  is  the  story  of  a  conscious 
life,  it  is  itself  undivided  and  indivisible.  There  is 
no  break  in  the  continuity  of  consciousness.  We  feel 
perfectly  sure  that,  had  we  been  born  at  any  period  in 
all  these  centuries,  we  should  have  lived  our  lives,  the 
great  majority  of  us  at  least,  without  any  sense  of  break 
or  even  of  remarkable  change  of  any  kind.  But  that  is 
true  also  of  the  life  we  are  leading  to-day.  Few  of  us  are 
conscious  of  the  really  great  changes  which  are  taking 
place  in  the  religious  life  of  this  modern  world.  Yet  the 
historians  of  religion  will  some  day  mark  an  epoch  and 
draw  a  great  line  through  the  middle  of  our  lives,  and 
our  children's  children  will  date  a  new  period  from  these 
present  years  of  ours.  Thus  in  the  past  we  must  make 
our  divisions,  although  the  very  visualizing  of  the 
period  causes  us  to  feel  that  these  divisions  are  untrue. 
In  the  last  chapter  we  tried  to  establish  two  succes- 
sive stages  in  Rome's  religious  development :  a  primitive  w 
.stage  in  which  the  as  yet  untouched  Italic  stock  was 


34    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

concerned  with  the  gods  purely  as  the  givers  of  physical 
and  material  goods,  as  the  guardians  of  the  herds  and 
of  the  crops  and  of  human  increase.  There  was  no  pur- 
pose in  this  worship  other  than  the  mere  instinct  of  social 
preservation.  The  individual  had  no  spiritual  life  of  his 
own,  and  therefore  no  individual  religious  interests. 
Then  we  chronicled  a  great  change.  This  was  not  the 
coming  of  individualism.  It  was  not  yet  time  for  that. 
It  was  rather  the  advent  of  a  loftier  purpose  into  the  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  consciousness  of  these  people. 
In  a  word,  we  saw  the  coming  of  the  Etruscans,  their 
conquest  of  this  region ;  and  the  great  gift  which  their 
presence  brought  to  the  Roman  people.  When  they 
came,  they  found  a  loosely  united  tribal  community; 
when  they  departed,  they  left  a  nation  behind  them. 
There  was  something  in  the  world  bigger  than  the  num- 
ber of  the  sheep  and  the  fullness  of  the  granaries.  There 
was  a  nation  and  a  love  of  it.  There  was,  in  a  word, 
patriotism,  and  a  large  background  of  religion  to  sup- 
port it.  Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus,  Jupiter  Victor,  and 
his  daughter  Victoria,  these  were  objects  of  worship 
which  filled  men  with  a  new  enthusiasm.  Yet  it  was  no 
new  and  strange  thing  soon  to  be  lost.  It  was  to  be  a 
permanent  possession  for  at  least  a  thousand  years.  It 
was  to  outlast  as  a  vital  power  every  form  of  religion 
then  present.  Thus  filled  with  a  patriotic  zeal,  possessed 
of  an  ethnic  religion,  the  Roman  people  went  forward 
into  their  history,  whither  we  must  now  follow  them. 


ROME  AND  GREECE  35 

It  will  be  well,  I  think,  to  follow  them  for  a  moment 
in  the  purely  surface  facts  with  which  we  are  all  more 
or  less  familiar.  We  shall  return  later  to  the  interpre- 
tation of  these  things.  The  development  which  we  are 
now  to  discuss  is  virtually  equivalent  to  the  five  hun- 
dred years  of  the  Republic.  The  very  fact  that  we  are 
compelled  to  cover  so  much  of  human  history  in  order 
to  obtain  the  picture  indicates  how  scanty  our  sources 
are,  and  yet  I  believe  they  are  sufficient  to  justify  our 
attempt. 

The  history  of  the  Republic  falls  naturally  into  two 
divisions:  the  three  centuries  through  the  year  B.C.  200 
—  in  other  words,  through  the  close  of  the  Second  Punic 
War;  and  the  last  two  centuries  before  Christ  to  the 
battle  of  Actium,  B.C.  31.  During  the  first  of  these  periods 
Rome  was  fighting  her  way  to  world-wide  supremacy. 
During  the  second,  she  was  vainly  striving  to  set  her 
own  house  in  order.  We  must  treat  of  the  two  periods 
separately. 

We  begin  with  the  three  centuries  B.C.  500  to  B.C.  200. 
Of  the  first  of  these  centuries  we  know  but  little;  of  the 
second  more,  but  not  very  much ;  and  of  the  third,  a  rela- 
tively large  amount.  So  far  as  territorial  development  is 
concerned,  the  three  centuries  represent  an  enormous 
change.  At  the  beginning,  this  city  of  ours  was  merely 
one  member  of  a  league  of  a  few  Latin  towns;  at  the 
close,  she  was  in  possession  of  the  whole  of  central  and 
southern  Italy,  of  Corsica,  Sardinia,  Sicily,  and  the  two 


36    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Spains.  At  the  beginning,  she  was  an  insignificant  un- 
known community  on  the  Tiber;  at  the  close,  she  was 
the  dominating  force  in  the  Mediterranean,  and  within 
another  century  all  the  western  remains  of  Alexander's 
empire  were  to  fall  into  her  hands.  Surely  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  Etruscans  was  having  a  marvelous  effect 
and  Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus  was  coming  into  his 
own. 

Regarding  these  three  centuries  more  closely,  we  see 
that  the  chief  events  in  the  life  of  the  city  were  as  fol- 
lows. Sometime  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  the 
constitution  was  changed  from  a  kingdom  into  a  repub- 
lic. At  about  the  same  time,  though  not  necessarily 
connected  with  it,  came  the  driving  out  of  the  Etrus- 
cans, and  the  subsequent  series  of  wars  waged  by  the 
Romans  against  them.  It  was  not,  however,  until  the 
beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  that  the  Etruscan 
power  in  this  neighborhood  was  thoroughly  broken. 
In  B.C.  396,  after  a  siege  of  ten  years,  the  Etruscan  town 
of  Veii  surrendered,  and  from  that  time  on  the  ultimate 
victory  of  Rome  was  assured.  But  though  her  victory 
against  the  Etruscans  was  certain,  trouble  began  in 
another  quarter.  The  Gauls,  who  had  entered  Italy 
from  the  north,  and  settled  in  the  valley  of  the  Po,  till 
now  held  in  check  by  the  Etruscans,  descended  upon 
Rome.  They  came  along  the  Via  Salaria  and  entered 
Rome  at  the  point  where  successful  invaders  have  al- 
most always  entered  it.  They  sacked  the  city,  and  then 


ROME  AND  GREECE  37 

Rome  set  to  work  to  repair  her  walls.  Thus  was  that 
wall  built,  the  remains  of  which  we  to-day  wrongly  call 
the  Servian  Wall.  It  was  certainly  built  after  B.C.  390, 
and  probably  before  the  middle  of  the  century.  This 
dating  agrees  admirably  with  the  evidence  which  the 
wall  itself  gives.  The  fact  that  certain  blocks  in  it  seem 
to  be  older  can  be  explained  by  supposing  that  they 
were  taken  either  from  an  older  wall  on  another  site  or 
from  some  old  building.  The  older  wall  may  have  been 
that  which  the  Etruscans  built.  During  the  rest  of  the 
century  we  have  the  gradual  extension  of  Rome's  power 
in  Latium  and  southwards,  and  the  closing  decades  of 
the  century  witnessed  in  the  city  itself  the  rise  to  power 
of  Appius  Claudius,  who  built  the  first  aqueduct  and  the 
first  great  Roman  road,  the  Via  Appia.  This  road  was  to 
be  of  vital  importance  in  Rome's  subsequent  history, 
until  under  the  empire  it  had  to  yield  the  first  place  to 
the  Via  Flaminia,  which  Gaius  Flaminius  built  some 
ninety  years  after  the  Via  Appia. 

The  story  of  the  third  century  is  familiar  to  many  of 
us.  At  its  beginning,  Rome  fought  with  Pyrrhus  for 
the  control  of  southern  Italy,  Magna  Graecia.  Then 
came  the  desperate  wars  between  Rome  and  her  most 
powerful  adversary,  Carthage,  ending  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  against  Hannibal. 

This  is  a  simple  story  in  its  outlines ;  we  are  all  familiar 
with  it,  yet  it  really  explains  very  little.  If  we  rest  con- 
tent with  it,  we  shall  find  ourselves  entirely  out  of  touch 


38    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

with  the  Romans  as  we  meet  them,  let  us  say,  in  the 
days  of  Plautus  and  Terence.  We  shall  have  no  fruit- 
ful knowledge  of  what  was  really  happening.  The  people 
will  remain  mere  puppets  for  us,  and  we  shall  not  be 
able  to  enter  into  their  lives.  Such  superficial  historical 
knowledge  is  of  very  little  value.  Let  us  attempt,  there- 
fore, to  make  a  really  vital  acquaintance  with  the  people 
of  these  centuries.  The  underlying  fact  which  explains 
the  development  of  Rome  during  this  period  is  the  in- 
fluence of  Greece.  When  we  think  of  what  Greece  her- 
self was  doing  between  B.C.  j)OO_ajrioljE^c  j2OO,  we  are  not 
surprised  that  her  influence  should  have  reached  Italy. 
But  we  must  not  forget  that,  for  the  major  portion  of 
these  three  hundred  years,  it  was  not  the  motherland 
of  Greece  which  was  influencing  Rome,  but  rather  the 
colonies  in  southern  Italy,  especially  the  very  early 
settlement  at  Cumse.  It  is  important  to  keep  this  dis- 
tinction in  mind,  because  much  that  happened  later  in 
Rome  can  best  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  the  source 
of  her  inspiration  was  an  inferior  one. 

In  estimating  the  influence  of  one  nation  upon  an- 
other, modern  parallels  are  of  little  value,  because  of  the 
totally  changed  character  of  the  processes  of  communi- 
cation. In  antiquity  the  first  influence  seems  to  have 
been  purely  commercial.  But  the  importation  of  pro- 
ducts required  human  agency,  hence  the  commercial 
traveler.  And  these  travelers,  bringing  their  own  gods 
with  them,  established  the  second  kind  of  influence, 


ROME  AND  GREECE  39 

that  of  religion  and  myth.  Finally,  much  later,  came  the 
purely  intellectual  influence  by  the  medium  of  literature. 

In  the  case  of  the  influence  of  Greece  on  Rome,  the 
purely  commercial  stage  was  reached  very  early,  even 
before  the  Etruscans  came,  for  we  find  Greek  vases  from 
southern  Italy  in  the  graveyard  in  the  Forum,  which 
ceased  to  be  used  when  the  Etruscans  conquered  Rome. 
The  influence  of  Greek  religion  and  myth  seems  to 
have  become  prominent  during  the  Etruscan  domina- 
tion. Doubtless  the  Etruscans  themselves,  with  their 
love  of  Greek  things,  assisted  materially  in  this.  Finally, 
the  influence  of  literature  did  not  make  itself  felt  until 
the  middle  of  the  third  century,  and  does  not  concern 
us  here.  The  vital  factor  in  the  changes  of  these  centuries 
was  the  influence  of  Greek  religion  and  myth. 

The  first  Greek  elements  which  came  into  Rome  were, 
curiously  enough,  not  recognized  by  the  Romans  as  be- 
ing Greek.  There  was,  for  example,  the  cult  of  Hercules, 
himself  purely  a  Greek  god,  who  came  up  with  the  mer- 
chants out  of  southern  Italy,  and  in  some  way,  which 
we  do  not  understand,  established  himself  at  Tibur 
(Tivoli).  Thence  his  cult  spread  to  Rome,  where  he  was 
received  not  as  a  Greek  god,  but  as  a  god  of  Tibur,  — 
i.e.,  a  Latin-Sabine  god,  —  and  given  an  altar  inside  the 
pomerium,  in  the  Forum  Boarium.  Then  there  were 
Castor  and  Pollux,  who  were  the  patrons  of  the  cavalry 
in  southern  Italy,  and  came  up  into  Latium,  where  they 
established  themselves,  especially  at  Tusculum.  Thence 


40    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

they,  too,  came  into  Rome  as  kindred  and  not  foreign 
gods,  and  received  a  temple  in  the  Forum.  So  entirely 
lacking  was  the  feeling  that  these  gods  were  foreigners, 
that  at  a  later  day  Hercules  and  Castor  and  Pollux  were, 
as  it  were,  brought  in  again,  this  time  under  avowedly 
Greek  influence,  given  shrines  outside  the  city,  and 
worshiped  according  to  a  new  ritual,  which  differed 
radically  from  the  old-fashioned  ceremonial  of  the  Forum 
and  the  Forum  Boarium.  But  these  were  isolated  cases. 
The  rank  and  file  of  Greek  gods  came  into  Rome  in  an 
extraordinary  way.  As  early  as  the  sixth  century,  Rome 
had  established  commercial  relations  with  Cumae.  As 
a  result  of  these  relations  the  cult  of  Apollo,  the  divine 
physician,  was  introduced  into  Rome  and  given  a  sanc- 
tuary in  the  Campus  Martius.  In  the  train  of  Apollo 
there  came  to  Rome  a  collection  of  oracles  written  in 
Greek.  These  oracles  were  the  possession  of  the  Roman 
State.  They  were  housed  in  the  Capitoline  Temple,  and 
placed  under  the  guardianship  of  a  newly  formed  priest- 
hood. In  time  of  peril  the  Senate  caused  the  oracles  to 
be  consulted,  and  the  deities  which  they  recommended 
were  thereupon  introduced.  In  this  fashion  a  host  of 
Greek  gods  entered  Rome  during  the  three  centuries 
with  which  we  are  dealing. 

The  earliest  recorded  use  of  the  Sibylline  Oracles  is 
in  the  case  of  the  trinity,  Demeter,  Dionysos,  and  Kore, 
who  were  introduced  into  Rome  and  given  a  temple, 
in  B.C.  493,  outside  the  pomerium,  near  the  spot  where 


ROME  AND  GREECE  41 

later  stood  the  Circus  Maximus.  These  three  Greek 
deities  were,  however,  given  the  names  of  three  already 
existing  Roman  gods,  Ceres,  Liber,  Libera.  The  inevit- 
able result  of  this  identification  was  that  the  old  Roman 
gods  were  entirely  forgotten,  and  the  name  came  to 
mean  almost  exclusively  the  new  Graeco-Roman  deities. 
But  although  493  is  the  first  recorded  instance,  we  are 
justified  in  supposing  that  the  worship  of  Hermes,  under 
the  name  of  Mercury,  was  also  due  to  these  oracles.  Mer- 
cury received  a  temple  in  B.C.  495,  also  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  Circus  Maximus.  It  is  only  owing  to  the 
fact  that  Livy  omits  to  mention  the  circumstances  under 
which  the  temple  was  vowed  that  we  have  lost  the  de- 
finite statement  that  the  cult  was  introduced  after  a 
consultation  of  the  Sibylline  Oracles.  Hut.  every  thing 
connected  with  the  cult  indicates  these  Oracles  as  the 
source  of  its  introduction.  In  fact,  the  coming  of  Mer- 
cury and  of  the  new  Ceres  are  closely  bound  together, 
and  are  the  reflection  in  the  world  above  of  an  interest- 
ing economic  development  which  was  taking  place  on 
earth,  namely,  the  introduction  of  Sicilian  grain  into 
Rome,  for  Ceres  and  her  companions  represent  the  grain 
itself,  and  Mercury  the  protection  of  the  merchants  at 
whose  instigation  the  importation  was  undertaken.  It 
was  probably  about  the  same  time  that  the  old  Roman 
Neptune,  who  had  been  primarily  a  god  of  water  and 
of  rivers,  but  with  no  especial  connection  with  the  sea, 
began  to  be  identified  with  the  Greek  Poseidon,  the 


42    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

ruler  of  the  ocean.  By  her  worship  of  the  deity  of  the 
sea,  Rome  gained  in  a  sense  a  control  over  the  ocean, 
and  effected,  as  it  were,  a  sort  of  marine  insurance,  which 
was  becoming  essential  to  her  on  account  of  the  grain 
traffic  with  Sicily. 

The  .Sibylline  Oracles  were  doubtless  used  on  many 
occasions  of  which  our  records  show  no  traces ;  and  this 
accounts  in  part  for  the  fact  that  the  next  known  date 
of  their  use  is  B.C.  293,  two  hundred  years  later.  It  may 
also  be  true  that  a  reaction  took  place  after  the  begin- 
ning of  the  fifth  century  and  that  the  Oracles  were  not 
used  as  frequently  as  at  first,  until  the  war  with  Pyrrhus 
brought  Rome  into  immediate  and  intimate  contact  with 
Greece.  However  this  may  be,  in  B.C.  292,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  a  severe  pestilence  in  Rome,  the  Books  were  again 
consulted,  with  the  result  that  the  worship  of  ^scula- 
pius  was  introduced  from  Epidaurus.  The  snake,  which 
symbolized  the  god  of  healing  and  which  the  Roman 
embassy  brought  back  from  Greece,  elected  to  swim 
ashore  at  the  island  of  the  Tiber;  and  accordingly  it  was 
there  that  the  sanctuary  of  ^sculapius  was  built.  When 
in  the  course  of  centuries  paganism  had  given  place  to 
Christianity,  the  work  of  healing,  which  had  gone  on 
without  change  on  this  spot,  was  continued  by  the  hos- 
pital of  San  Bartolommeo  down  into  the  present  day. 
But  this  place  of  healing  has  not  only  the  longest 
unbroken  record  in  our  world  to-day;  it  was  also  the 
inspiration  of  that  other  St.  Bartholemew's,  which  Lon- 


ROME  AND  GREECE  43 

don  and  the  world  know  so  well.  Half  a  century  later, 
in  B.C.  249,  during  a  critical  period  in  the  First  Punic 
War,  when  Rome  was  terrified  by  a  series  of  prodigies, 
the  Oracles  were  again  consulted,  and  Pluto  and  Perse- 
phone were  brought  into  Rome  and,  under  the  name  of 
Dis  and  Proserpina,  given  an  altar  in  the  Campus 
Martius.  This  was  the  beginning  for  Rome  of  those 
saecular  games  which,  two  centuries  later,  were  to  be 
celebrated  by  Augustus  and  for  which  Horace  wrote  the 
Carmen  S&culare.  It  was  at  the  old  altar  in  the  Campus 
Martius  that  the  original  inscriptions  were  discovered, 
which  are  now  housed  in  the  Terme  Museum,  and  which 
form  such  an  eloquent  contemporary  testimony  to  the 
event. 

More  important  even  than  the  introduction  of  these 
deities  was  the  gradual  diffusion  of  the  religious  ideas  and 
myths  of  Greece.  With  amazing  willingness  and  marvel- 
ous facility  the  Romans  adapted  all  their  old  deities  to 
these  new  ideas.  Everywhere  Greek  parallels  were  sought 
for  in  things  Roman,  and  a  host  of  Greek  legends  were 
taken  over  bodily  by  the  Romans  with  mere  changes  of 
names.  Thus,  for  example,  arose  among  the  Romans  the 
custom  of  attributing  all  innovations,  including  the  foun- 
dation of  cities,  to  some  individual  whose  name  was 
known.  The  application  of  this  principle  to  the  city  of 
Rome  produced  the  legend  of  Romulus  as  the  founder. 
Thus  the  whole  religious  apparatus  of  early  Rome  was 
measured  against  Greek  standards,  and  cut  and  altered 


44    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME1 

to  suit.  In  this  process  some  of  the  old  Roman  deities, 
who  had  ceased  to  be  vital,  perished,  so  that  only  their 
names  and  the  ritual  of  the  cult  remained,  and  they 
themselves  became  targets  for  etymological  bowmen; 
while  those  gods  who  were  still  vital  took  on  a  new  form 
and  with  it  a  new  lease  of  life. 

Such  a  relatively  sudden  reorganization  of  religious 
ideas  could  not  fail  to  be  dangerous  even  under  the  best 
of  auspices.  Conservatism  suffered  a  temporary  eclipse, 
and  the  loss  of  conservatism  implied  a  loss  of  balance. 
But  in  addition  to  this,  it  so  happened  that  the  new 
ideas  themselves  could  be  only  partially  appreciated  by 
the  Romans,  and  that,  like  most  ideas,  they  were  very 
dangerous  when  only  half  understood.  It  is  not  wonder- 
ful that  these  busy  practical  Romans  failed  to  under- 
stand the  beauty  of  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Greeks. 
No  nation  as  such  has  ever  understood  them.  At  best  a 
few  individuals  have  succeeded  in  partially  comprehend- 
ing them.  In  view  of  all  that  the  last  decade  has  taught 
us  about  the  origin  of  Greek  art  and  its  Oriental  bear- 
ings, one  is  tempted  to  wonder  whether  Greece  may  not 
perhaps  have  represented  the  perfect  equipoise  of  East 
and  West,  containing  both  elements  in  her  intellectual 
as  well  as  in  her  artistic  life,  an  equipoise  of  which  the 
world  in  our  day  stands  in  great  need,  but  which  it  may 
take  us  some  time  to  find.  If  such  a  theory  of  equipoise 
be  true,  it  would  account  not  only  for  Greek  art  but  also 
for  the  Greek  ideas  of  salvation  by  reason. 


ROME  AND  GREECE  45 

Be  this  as  it  may,  the  Greek  idea  of  men  as  the  sons 
of  gods,  with  all  the  intercourse  and  companionship 
which  such  a  descent  implies,  was  something  at  once 
incomprehensible  and  terrible  to  the  Roman  mind.  In 
their  older  days  they  had  known  nothing  of  the  gods, 
those  unseen  gods  who  were  known  only  in  their  ac- 
tivities. Then  had  come  the  tutelage  of  the  Etruscans, 
who  can  scarcely  have  failed  to  impress  upon  the  Romans 
something  of  that  terror  of  the  gods  which  Etruscan 
art  so  vividly  portrays.  And  now  the  Oracles  were 
here,  and  with  them  the  fullness  of  the  anthropomorphic 
conception.  Thus  there  came  into  being  that  superstition 
that  excess  of  belief,  which  was  to  be  so  characteristic 
of  Roman  religion  from  now  until  the  end  of  the  Repub- 
lic, that  Lucretius,  in  attacking  it,  thought  that  he 
had  attacked  religion. 

This  super stitio  battened  upon  the  crises  and  the  perils 
of  the  Second  Punic  War,  and  it  was  in  one  of  the  dark- 
est moments  of  that  war  that  it  received  a  visible  incor- 
poration in  the  introduction  of  the  Great  Mother  of  the 
Gods.  Hannibal  had  been  defeated,  but  he  had  taken 
refuge  with  his  troops  in  the  mountain  fastnesses  of 
southern  Italy.  It  seemed  impossible  to  drive  him  out  of 
the  peninsula.  In  her  perplexity  Rome  had  recourse  to 
the  Sibylline  Books.  There  an  oracle  seemed  to  indi- 
cate that,  if  the  Great  Mother  of  the  Gods  were  brought 
to  Italy  and  worshiped  in  Rome,  she  would  drive  Hanni- 
bal out.  The  Romans,  who  at  this  time  had  scarcely 


46    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

heard  of  the  Magna  Mater,  obediently  sent  for  her,  and 
in  due  course  the  meteoric  stone,  which  incorporated 
her,  was  fetched  from  Pessinus  in  Phrygia,  and  brought 
by  ship  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber.  Livy  tells  us  the  story 
in  full,  and  his  account  isjworth  quoting  (Book  xxix).1 

The  oracle  discovered  by  the  Decemviri  affected  the  Senate 
the  more  on  this  account,  because  the  ambassadors,  who  had 
brought  the  gifts  (vowed  at  the  battle  of  Metaurus)  to  Del- 
phi, reported  that,  when  they  were  sacrificing  to  the  Pythian 
Apollo,  the  omens  were  all  favorable,  and  that  the  oracle  had 
given  response  that  a  greater  victory  was  at  hand  for  the 
Roman  people  than  that  one  from  whose  spoils  they  were  then 
bringing  gifts.  And  as  a  finishing  touch  to  this  same  hope, 
they  dwelt  upon  the  prophetic  opinion  of  Publius  Scipio, 
regarding  the  end  of  the  war,  because  he  had  asked  for  Africa 
as  his  province.  And  so  in  order  that  they  might  the  more 
quickly  obtain  that  victory,  which  promised  itself  to  them  by 
the  omens  and  oracles  of  fate,  they  began  to  consider  what 
means  there  were  of  bringing  the  goddess  to  Rome.  As  yet 
the  Roman  people  had  no  states  in  alliance  with  them  in  Asia 
Minor;  however,  they  remembered  that  formerly  ^Esculapius 
had  been  brought  from  Greece  for  the  sake  of  the  health  of 
the  people,  though  they  had  no  alliance  with  Greece,  They 
realized,  too,  that  a  friendship  had  been  begun  with  King 
Attalus  (of  Pergamon)  —  and  that  Attalus  would  do  what  he 
could  in  behalf  of  the  Roman  people ;  and  so  they  decided  to 
send  ambassadors  to  him  —  and  they  allotted  them  five  ships- 
of -war,  in  order  that  they  might  approach  in  a  fitting  manner 
the  countries  which  they  desired  to  interest  in  their  favor. 
Now,  when  the  ambassadors  were  on  their  way  to  Asia,  they 
disembarked  at  Delphi,  and  approaching  the  Oracle,  asked 
what  prospect  it  offered  them  and  the  Roman  people  of  ac- 

1  I  quote  ray  own  translation  in  The  Religion  of  Nwna,  p,  96. 


ROME  AND  GREECE 


47 


complishing  the  things,  which  they  had  been  sent  to  do.  It 
is  said  that  the  reply  was  that  through  King  Attains  they 
would  obtain  what  they  sought,  but  that,  when  they  brought 
the  goddess  to  Rome,  they  should  see  to  it  that  the  best  man 
in  Rome  should  be  on  hand  to  receive  her.  Then  they  came  to 
Pergamon,  to  the  King  (Attalus),  and  he  received  them  gra- 
ciously and  led  them  to  Pessinus  in  Phrygia,  and  he  gave  over 
to  them  the  sacred  stone,  which  the  natives  said  was  the 
Mother  of  the  Gods,  and  bade  them  carry  it  to  Rome.  And 
Marcus  Valerius  Falto  was  sent  ahead  by  the  ambassadors, 
and  he  announced  that  the  goddess  was  coming,  and  that 
the  best  man  in  the  state  must  be  sought  out  to  receive  her 
with  due  ceremony. 

Again  a  little  further  on,  Livy  continues  his  account : 

Then,  too,  the  matter  of  the  Idsean  Mother  must  be  at- 
tended to,  for  aside  from  the  fact  that  Marcus  Valerius,  one 
of  the  ambassadors  who  had  been  sent  ahead,  had  announced 
that  she  would  soon  be  in  Italy,  there  was  also  a  fresh  message 
that  she  was  already  at  Tarracina.  The  Senate  had  to  decide 
a  very  important  matter,  namely,  who  was  the  best  man  in 
the  state,  for  every  man  in  the  state  preferred  a  victory  in  such 
a  contest  as  this  to  any  commands  or  offices  which  the  vote  of 
the  Senate  or  the  people  might  give  him.  They  decided  that 
of  all  the  good  men  in  the  state  the  best  was  Publius  Scipio. .  . . 
He  then  with  all  the  matrons  was  ordered  to  go  to  Ostia  to 
meet  the  goddess  and  to  receive  her  from  the  ship,  to  carry  her 
to  land,  and  to  give  her  over  to  the  women  to  carry.  After 
the  ship  came  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tiber,  Scipio,  going  out  in 
a  small  boat,  as  he  had  been  commanded,  received  the  god- 
dess from  the  priests  and  carried  her  to  land.  And  the  noblest 
women  in  the  land  .  .  .  received  her  .  .  .  and  they  carried 
the  goddess  in  their  arms,  taking  turn  about,  while  all  Rome 
poured  out  to  meet  her,  and  incense  burners  were  placed 
before  the  doors  where  she  was  carried  by,  and  incense  was 


48    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

burned  in  her  honor.  And  thus  praying,  that  she  might  enter 
willingly  and  propitiously  into  the  city,  they  carried  her  into 
the  temple  of  Victory,  which  is  on  the  Palatine,  on  the  day 
before  the  Nones  of  April  (April  4).  And  this  was  a  festal  day, 
and  the  people  in  great  numbers  gave  gifts  to  the  goddess, 
and  a  banquet  for  the  gods  was  held,  and  games  were  per- 
formed which  were  called  Megalesia. 

Thus  brought  in,  she  accomplished  her  work,  and 
Hannibal  returned  to  Carthage.  But  when  Hannibal 
had  gone,  there  remained  in  Italy  a  far  worse  enemy  of 
Rome.  It  was  the  great  Mother  herself,  with  her  cym- 
bal-clashing eunuch  priests;  the  first  of  the  orgiastic 
Oriental  cults,  fraught  with  such  danger  to  Rome,  until 
they,  too,  became  in  time  subdued  to  a  more  spiritual 
purpose.  But  for  the  moment  Hannibal  was  gone,  the 
Second  Punic  War  was  ended,  and  we  turn  to  the  last 
half  of  the  Republic. 

The  last  two  centuries  of  the  Republic  present  so 
many  striking  resemblances  to  the  world  of  our  own  day ; 
we  feel  so  much  more  akin  to  the  people  of  those  days, 
so  much  nearer  to  them  than  to  the  dwellers  in  centuries 
numerically  much  nearer  to  ours,  that  a  word  of  caution 
is  necessary.  The  latest  mode  in  the  writing  of  history, 
in  its  desire  to  make  the  past  live  again,  has  sacrificed 
everything,  that  modern  parallels  might  be  exalted. 
This  is,  however,  merely  a  reaction  against  the  traditional 
method.  Like  most  reactions,  it  is  justified  in  its  exist- 
ence but  it  goes  too  far.  If  the  study  of  the  past  is  to  be 
profitable,  we  must  seek  for  differences  rather  than  re- 


ROME  AND  GREECE  49 

semblances.  This  is  not  to  deny  the  existence  of  many 
practically  unchanging  characteristics  in  human  nature, 
nor  is  it  to  deny  the  usefulness  of  books  which  empha- 
size the  resemblance  of  antiquity  to  the  present,  so  as 
to  make  the  study  of  the  classics  more  pleasing  to  the 
modern  boy.  But  those  who  have  put  away  childish 
things  might  derive  greater  profit  from  a  treatise  on  the 
same  period  in  which  differences  were  incisively  char- 
acterized. We  must  of  necessity  follow  this  method,  be- 
cause these  differences  do  exist  and  history  does  not 
repeat  itself.  We  assert  this  not  so  much  by  knowledge 
as  by  faith.  For  the  answer  to  the  question,  "Does 
history  repeat  itself?"  is  the  measure  of  a  man's  life. 
If  it  does,  then  we  are  involved  in  the  everlasting  round 
of  Buddhistic  thought;  if  it  does  not,  then  there  is  the 
possibility  of  progress  and  the  corresponding  hope,  and 
our  whole  ethical  life  receives  a  new  impulse.  Realizing 
these  differences  in  spite  of  the  resemblances,  let  us 
now  consider  the  last  two  centuries  of  the  Republic. 

Our  task  is  more  exactly  from  B.C.  201  to  B.C.  31, — 
from  the  close  of  the  Second  Punic  War  to  the  battle 
of  Actium.  We  must  study  first  the  surface  facts.  At 
the  close  of  the  Second  Punic  War,  Rome  found  herself 
suddenly  in  the  possession  of  world  power.  The  pos- 
session of  that  power  operated  very  largely  as  it  does 
to-day  in  producing  a  sudden  commercial  expansion. 
The  acquisition  of  power  caused  the  formation  of  great 
private  fortunes.  The  upper,  the  senatorial  class,  amassed 


50    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

wealth  by  the  corrupt  government  of  the  provinces; 
while  the  middle  class,  the  knights,  grew  rich  by  the 
process  of  farming  the  taxes.  There  were  present  cer- 
tain primitive  forms  of  combination  in  restraint  of 
competition,  but  that  which  is  most  characteristic  of 
the  age  is  the  primary  importance  which  attaches  to 
economic  and  financial  conditions.  There  is  perhaps 
nothing,  in  the  whole  history  of  the  Republic,  which 
strikes  such  a  thoroughly  modern  note  as  the  single 
fact  that  when  Pompey  was  appointed  against  the  Cili- 
cian  pirates,  instantly  the  Roman  market  experienced  a 
fall  in  the  price  of  grain.  This  market  anticipation  is 
thoroughly  modern,  and  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
it  would  have  been  possible  at  any  time  between  the 
late  Republic  or  the  early  Empire  and  our  own  day. 

The  increase  of  private  wealth  brought  with  it,  as  it 
always  does,  the  problem  of  investment.  By  the  con- 
ditions of  ancient  life  the  field  of  investment  was  much 
more  limited  than  it  is  to-day.  There  were  no  govern- 
ment securities  to  be  purchased;  for  the  government 
of  Rome  was  a  clearing-house  rather  than  a  bank.  Her 
financial  operations  were  in  the  main  carried  on  for  her 
by  private  organizations,  which  returned  to  her  a  cer- 
tain stipulated  sum,  retaining  for  themselves  the  bene- 
fits of  all  further  profits  and  the  responsibility  for 
all  deficits.  Further,  there  were  possible  no  especial 
investments  in  the  field  of  transportation.  There  was  no 
such  development  of  manufacturing  that  " industrials'* 


ROME  AND  GREECE  51 

entered  into  the  calculation.  Aside  from  unproductive 
articles  of  luxury,  for  which  money  might  be  spent, 
there  remained  only  the  purchase  of  land  and  of  slaves, 
and  the  combination  of  the  two  in  agriculture. 

But  these  favorite  investments  were  in  their  turn  the 
cause  of  a  wide-reaching  social  change.  The  small  land- 
owner, whose  farm  had  suffered  from  the  ravages  of  the 
Second  Punic  War,  thus  yielded  to  the  temptation  of 
selling  his  land  or  was  forced  into  it  by  the  foreclosing 
of  mortgages.  Deprived  of  his  farm,  there  was  no  work 
left  for  him  to  do.  He  could  not  become  the  hired  man, 
—  the  refuge  which  many  of  the  farmers  of  America 
found  under  similar  conditions,  —  for  the  presence  of 
slave  labor  made  this  impossible,  and  even  the  steward 
or  bailiff  was  himself  a  slave.  Thus  he  gravitated  toward 
the  city.  Arrived  there,  he  increased  the  city  popula- 
tion and  created  the  problem  of  the  unemployed.  His 
one  asset  was  his  vote  and  his  political  support,  his 
liability  was  the  struggle  for  existence.  These  are  the 
vital  events  of  the  seventy  years  between  the  Punic 
wars  and  the  Gracchi.  They  are  much  more  important 
than  the  conquest  of  new  provinces  or  the  building  of 
basilicas  in  the  Forum,  —  details  into  which  we  have 
no  time  to  go. 

And  so  we  pass  to  our  second  period,  the  last  cen- 
tury of  the  Republic.  The  outward  facts  in  this  period 
are  relatively  simple.  A  man  tries  to  solve  the  problem 
of  the  unemployed,  and  to  put  the  small  farmer  back 


52     RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

on  the  land.  To  accomplish  his  ends  he  performs  illegal 
acts  and  is  killed.  His  brother  ten  years  later  takes 
up  the  same  problem  and  becomes  his  avenger.  To  gain 
political  control,  he  corrupts  the  masses  by  the  first 
distribution  of  free  corn.  He  subsequently  proposes  citi- 
zenship for  the  Italians,  which  loses  him  his  popularity 
and  eventually  his  life.  Thus  the  Gracchi  and  the  begin- 
nings of  socialism.  Next  arises  a  great  military  hero, 
Caius  Marius,  who  makes  good  his  lack  of  statesman- 
ship by  the  strong  right  arm  of  the  soldiery,  a  force  which 
the  Gracchi  had  lacked.  Thus  begins  militarism.  Then 
comes  half  a  century  of  party  struggle,  devoid  of  prin- 
ciples and  ideals,  Marius  against  Sulla,  Pompey  against 
Caesar.  And  finally  Caesar  himself  falls  at  the  hands  of 
the  assassins.  <%t^.D>  •  3) 

These  are  not  times  in  which  we  have  a  right  to  expect 
any  growth  of  culture.  There  are  two  essentials  for  the 
increase  of  higher  things :  simplicity  of  life  and  the  pre- 
sence of  lofty  ideals.  Both  of  these  essentials  were  ne- 
cessarily lacking  in  these  years.  Material  goods  were  so 
distributed  that  those  in  the  upper  places  were  over- 
whelmed by  the  multitude  of  them,  whereas  the  lower 
classes  were  deprived  of  those  things  which  are  essen- 
tial to  life  itself  even  in  its  simplicity.  Then,  too,  amid 
the  rivalry  of  party  strife  there  was  no  incentive  to  the 
cultivation  of  ideals.  It  was  a  generation  of  money  and 
politics.  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the  estab- 
lished religion  fell  into  decay.  In  the  first  place,  politics 


ROME  AND  GREECE  53 

had  no  hesitation  about  entering  into  the  priesthoods. 
There  were,  to  be  sure,  certain  priesthoods  into  which 
politics  could  not  enter.  For  example,  the  "  shadow 
king,"  the  rex  sacrorum,  —  that  priest  who,  at  the  change 
from  the  Kingdom  into  the  Republic,  was  appointed 
to  carry  on  the  priestly  duties  which  in  the  old  days  the 
king  himself  had  performed  —  was  by  the  very  nature 
of  his  position  strictly  prohibited  from  entering  into 
politics.  According  to  the  Roman  manner  of  thinking  it 
was  necessary  that  he  should  be  appointed,  because  the 
Roman  state  had  no  right  to  alter  the  title  of  the  person 
who  from  time  immemorial  had  performed  certain  re- 
ligious ceremonies.  The  change  might  not  be  agreeable 
to  the  powers  above,  and  there  was  no  legitimate  means 
of  ascertaining  their  opinion.  Thus  the  "rex"  was  re- 
tained in  name,  but  the  danger  of  conspiracy  against  the 
republic  was  reduced  to  a  minimum  by  compelling  the 
holder  of  this  position  to  stand  apart  from  political  life. 
For  other  reasons,  the  especial  priests  of  Jupiter  (Flamen 
Dialis),  of  Mars  (Flamen  Martialis),  and  of  Quirinus 
(Flamen  Quirinalis)  were  restricted  in  their  public  ac- 
tivity. But  where  politics  could  not  go,  there  all  interest 
ceased,  and  these  priesthoods  became  of  almost  no  im- 
portance, and  in  certain  cases  remained  vacant  for  years 
on  end.  They  afforded  a  sharp  contrast  to  the  three  great 
political  priesthoods :  the  Pontiffs,  the  Augurs,  the  Quin- 
decemviri.  These  grew  constantly  in  significance,  es- 
pecially since  by  the  passage  of  the  Domitian  law  (B.C. 


'54    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

104)  they  were  thrown  open  to  popular  election.  Per- 
sons thus  chosen  as  priests  would  in  the  nature  of  things 
care  for  the  political  and  not  for  the  religious  functions 
of  their  office.  Thus  the  calendar,  which  was  in  the  care 
of  the  priests,  fell  into  confusion.  Similarly  the  augurs, 
who  were  busy  applying  their  science  as  an  obstruction 
to  unpopular  political  measures,  cared  not  at  all  about 
the  theory  upon  which  their  science  rested.  Thus  the 
theory  of  augury  was  so  forgotten  that  in  Cicero's  day 
two  entirely  opposite  views  were  current.  Then,  too, 
the  cult  was  neglected,  and  with  the  neglect  of  the  cult, 
the  ritual,  which  had  been  passed  down  by  remembrance, 
was  lost  to  memory.  No  longer  were  the  temples  re- 
paired, but  they  fell  a  prey  to  the  elements  and  the  ex- 
uberant growth  of  vines  and  ivy.  But  perhaps  most 
characteristic  of  all,  because  it  touches  most  deeply 
personal  life,  was  the  abandonment  of  many  private 
sacrifices.  It  was  better  to  risk  the  wrath  of  ancestors 
in  another  world  than  the  inconveniences  of  offspring 
in  this.  Thus  childless  marriages  became  the  rule,  and 
the  sacrifices  lapsed  for  lack  of  those  who  could  carry 
them  on. 

But  in  looking  at  this  picture  we  must  not  for  a  mo- 
ment suppose  that  the  community  at  large  had  no  re- 
ligious needs.  Starve  and  crush  it  as  they  might,  the  re- 
ligious sense  was  ever  present  with  them.  They  could 
not  kill  it,  but  they  could  and  did  debase  and  pollute  it. 
For  the  satisfaction  of  these  depraved  religious  needs, 


ROME  AND  GREECE  55 

it  was  the  sensational  which  was  largely  sought  after. 
The  Great  Mother  had  now  received  her  own  temple 
on  the  Palatine,  and  her  priests,  with  their  clashing  and 
discordant  music,  were  familiar  figures  in  the  streets  of 
Rome.  The  law  still  forbade  Roman  citizens  to  become 
priests  of  Cybele,  but  evasions  of  the  law  were  not  un- 
known. When  the  Cimbri  and  the  Teutones  were  threat- 
ening Italy,  the  great  High  Priest  of  Cybele  from  Pes- 
sinus  had  come  to  Rome,  and  had  addressed  the  people, 
promising  them  the  victory  over  the  invaders.  A  Roman 
official  thought  it  his  duty  to  interfere,  and  dragged  the 
speaker  from  the  platform.  A  few  days  later  this  official 
died  of  a  fever,  and  Rome  was  not  at  loss  for  a  reason. 
The  popularity  of  Battaces,  the  High  Priest,  increased 
apace,  and  at  his  departure  from  the  city  a  few  days 
later  he  was  accompanied  to  the  gates  by  a  great  mul- 
titude of  men  and  women.  The  procession  was  not  unlike 
that  of  a  hundred  years  before,  when  the  ancestors  of 
these  men  and  women  had  gone  out  of  the  gates  to  wel- 
come the  sacred  image  of  the  Great  Mother,  whose 
High  Priest  had  now  deigned  to  visit  them.  Other  gods 
of  the  Orient  were  following  in  Cybele's  train.  There  was 
the  bloodstained  figure  of  the  Cappadocian  Mi,  whom 
Rome  had  taken  and  identified  with  her  own  old-fash- 
ioned Bellona.  Then  in  the  days  of  Sulla  there  came 
Isis  and  her  priests. 

The  more  exuberant  forms  of  Greek  philosophy  be- 
came popular  in  Rome.    Such  crude  ideas  as  those  of 


56    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  Neopythagoreans,  with  their  doctrine  of  the  trans- 
migration of  souls,  appealed  strongly  to  their  jaded 
senses.  Even  a  pious  fraud  was  perpetrated,  and  the  so- 
called  "  Books  of  Numa"  were  said  to  have  been  found 
in  a  stone  sarcophagus  in  Trastevere.  But  here  the  state 
stepped  in,  and  destroyed  the  books  before  they  had  an 
appreciable  effect.  All  through  this  period  the  action 
of  the  state  is  extremely  interesting.  Entirely  apart  from 
their  own  personal  belief,  the  rulers  of  Rome  felt  it  their 
patriotic  duty  to  be  the  defenders  of  the  state  religion. 
They  were  entirely  frank  in  their  disbelief,  and  one  of  the 
greatest  jurists  of  the  day  describes  three  kinds  of  re- 
ligion :  the  religion  of  the  philosophers,  who  explain  the 
world  according  to  their  own  doctrines;  the  religion  of 
the  poets,  who  use  the  paraphernalia  of  the  gods  on  which 
to  hang  their  myths  and  stories;  and  the  religion  of  the 
statesmen,  who  defend  the  religious  forms  of  the  fathers 
because  they  are  an  integral  part  of  the  state.  "  It  is  ex- 
pedient that  there  should  be  gods,  and  if  it  is  expedient, 
let  us  believe  that  there  are." 

But  these  statesmen  did  not  confine  themselves  to  a 
mechanical  accentuation  of  the  past.  On  _s_eyeral  occa- 
sions they  carried  on  active  operations  against  elements 
which  they  considered  hostile  to  the  public  good.  Again 
and  again  they  expelled  from  Rome  the  teachers  of 
philosophy.  But  their  most  dramatic  act  was  the  famous 
investigation  of  the  Bacchanalian  conspiracy  in  B.C.  186. 
We  have  the  account  in  Livy  in  a  series  of  graphic  chap- 


ROME  AND  GREECE  57 

ters,  and  we  have  the  dignified  decision  of  the  Senate 
preserved  to  us  in  the  original  decree,  in  an  inscription 
found  in  Bruttii,  and  at  present  in  the  museum  at 
Vienna  (C.I.L.  X.  104).  But  the  most  significant  fea- 
ture of  this  decree  is  its  broad-minded  religious  tolerance. 
Bad  as  these  societies  of  the  worship  of  Bacchus  seemed 
to  be,  they  were  after  all,  in  part  at  least,  the  expression 
of  religious  feeling,  and  it  might  well  happen  that,  even 
after  their  condemnation  by  the  Senate,  a  man  might 
feel  that  his  duty  demanded  this  particular  form  of  wor- 
ship. The  opportunity  must  be  left  to  him,  though  the 
state  might  well  hedge  it  about  with  all  reasonable  pre- 
cautions. Thus  the  decree  of  the  Senate  ordained  that  if 
any  man  felt  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  celebrate  these 
Bacchanalian  rites,  he  should  go  to  the  city  praetor  at 
Rome,  and  that  the  matter  should  then  be  referred  to 
the  Senate  at  a  meeting  at  which  not  less  than  one  hun- 
dred Senators  were  present. 

Toward  the  close  of  this  period,  in  the  age  which 
we  call  the  age  of  Cicero,  we  have  two  very  interesting 
attempts  to  deal  with  the  problems  of  religion.  The  two 
attempts  which  we  are  to  chronicle  approached  the  sub- 
ject from  exactly  opposite  sides.  In  the  one  case,  that 
of  Varro,  the  attempt  is  made  to  restore  old  Roman  re- 
ligion by  learning;  in  the  other  case,  that  of  Lucretius,  re- 
ligion is  attacked  and  an  attempt  is  made  to  destroy  it. 
It  is  very  strange  that  the  man  who  attempted  to  sup- 
port religion  accomplished  nothing,  while  the  man  who 


58    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

4 

attacked  it  performed  a  distinctly  religious  task.  Mar- 
cus Terentius  Varro  was  at  once  a  man  of  wide  and  exact 
learning,  and  an  ardent  adherent  of  the  Stoic  philosophy. 
It  seemed  to  him  a  possible  thing  to  exhibit  ancient 
Roman  religion  as  a  revelation  of  the  truths  of  Stoic 
philosophy  in  the  form  of  parables.  But  he  had  also  in 
view  another  purpose.  The  religion  of  the  fathers  had 
been  neglected,  and  so  largely  forgotten.  If  it  were  to 
be  restored,  a  knowledge  of  it  must  be  regained.  This 
was  a  primary  necessity.  And  so  he  set  to  work  in  a  series 
of  books  to  write  a  systematic  treatise  on  Roman  theo- 
logy, ritual,  and  church  organization.  The  very  pedantic 
character  of  what  he  wrote,  the  utter  unpracticality  of 
his  theories,  and  the  vagaries  of  his  etymological  specu- 
lation, are  all  of  them  proofs  of  his  absolute  sincerity. 
For  these  were  all  characteristics  of  Varro,  and  their 
presence  in  this  book  is  evidence  that  he  threw  himself 
entirely  into  the  writing  of  it.  Then,  too,  there  is  the 
pathetic  faith  of  the  scholar  toward  the  man  of  power, 
in  his  dedicating  of  the  book  to  Julius  Caesar,  in  the  lat- 
ter's  capacity  as  Pontifex  Maximus.  Of  course  nothing 
came  of  it;  nothing  could.  The  old  religion  was  dead,  and 
no  one  realized  that  more  clearly  than  Julius  Caesar  and 
his  successor  Augustus.  But  it  was  a  labor  of  love,  and 
as  such  it  was  not  wholly  lost.  Even  Augustine,  who 
four  hundred  years  later  chose  this  book  of  Varro's  as 
an  exhibition  of  the  vanities  and  follies  of  the  old  Roman 
religion,  seems  impressed  with  the  spirit  which  breathed 


ROME  AND  GREECE  59 

through  it.  For  us  the  book  is  lost;  we  have  only  Augus- 
tine's quotations  from  it ;  but  even  from  these  quotations 
comes  the  perfume  of  the  earnest  ethical  purpose  of  a 
Roman  whose  patriotism  supplied  the  deficiencies  of 
his  faith. 

Hardly  a  greater  contrast  could  be  found  than  that 
between  Varro  and  Lucretius;  and  almost  the  only 
thing  which  unites  them  is  their  common  interest  in 
philosophy  and  religion.  It  is  very  easy  to  contrast  them 
by  saying  that  Varro  used  his  philosophy  to  support  re- 
ligion, while  Lucretius  used  his  to  attack  it.  This  is  also 
reasonable  on  the  surface,  for  the  doctrines  of  Varro's 
Stoicism  were  well  calculated  to  support  religion,  while 
the  doctrines  of  Lucretius's  Epicureanism  were  equally 
well  calculated  to  undermine  it.  The  Stoic  theory  of 
the  grand  duality  of  creative  powers  —  the  father  and 
the  mother  idea,  the  heaven  and  the  earth — was  pecu- 
liarly applicable  to  the  older  forms  of  Roman  religious 
thought;  whereas  the  materialistic  and  mechanical  ex- 
planation of  the  atomic  theory  belonged  to  another 
world  of  thought. 

And  yet  to  stop  here  would  be  to  convey  an  altogether 
wrong  impression  of  Lucretius  and  his  work.  His  attack 
upon  religion  was  simply  the  result  of  his  own  intensely 
religious  nature.  His  advocacy  of  the  atomic  theory  is 
distinctly  a  religious  expression.  The  world  and  the  pro- 
cesses of  existence  are  so  wonderful  if  properly  under- 
stood that  he  who  contemplates  them  becomes  filled 


60    RELIGIOUS   LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

with  awe  and  reverence.  There  is  no  better  example  of 
this  than  the  passage  from  the  opening  of  the  first  book, 
in  which  he  sounds  the  praise  of  Epicurus.  I  quote 
Munro's  classic  translation :  — 

When  human  life  to  view  lay  foully  prostrate  upon  earth, 
crushed  down  under  the  weight  of  religion,  who  showed  her 
head  from  the  quarters  of  heaven  with  hideous  aspect  lowering 
upon  mortals,  a  man  of  Greece  ventured  first  to  lift  his  mortal 
eyes  to  her  face  and  first  to  withstand  her  to  the  face.  Him 
neither  story  of  gods  nor  thunderbolts  nor  heaven  with  threat- 
ing  roar  could  quell;  they  only  chafed  the  more  the  eager 
course  of  his  soul,  filling  him  with  desire  to  be  the  first  to 
burst  the  fast  bars  of  Nature's  portals.  Therefore,  the  living 
force  of  his  soul  gained  the  day:  on  he  passed,  far  beyond  the 
flaming  walls  of  the  world,  and  traversed  throughout  in  mind 
and  spirit  the  immeasurable  universe ;  whence  he  returns  a 
conqueror  to  tell  us  what  can,  what  cannot  come  into  being  ; 
in  short,  on  what  principle  each  thing  has  its  powers  defined, 
its  deep-set  boundary  mark.  Therefore  religion  is  put  under 
foot  and  trampled  upon  in  turn;  us  his  victory  brings  level 
with  heaven. 

Thus  in  his  attacks  upon  current  beliefs,  in  his  criti- 
cisms of  prayer  and  the  ritual  of  worship,  he  is  constantly 
unconsciously  calling  men  to  worship.  Lucretius  belongs 
in  the  category  of  the  world 's  great  religious  mystics.  At 
first  sight  he  appears  sadly  out  of  place  in  his  day  and 
generation,  and  the  object  of  his  worship  seems  such  a 
strange  thing.  And  yet  these  contradictions  are  the  best 
evidence  of  the  genuineness  of  his  mystical  nature.  He 
was  born  a  religious  mystic,  one  of  the  few  religious 
mystics  which  the  southland,  with  its  absence  of  half 


ROME  AND  GREECE  61 

shadows  and  twilight,  has  ever  produced.  Neither  the 
banal  trivialities  of  his  contemporary  Cicero,  nor  the 
mathematical  and  physical  austerity  of  the  system  by 
which  he  chose  to  explain  the  world,  could  in  any  way 
impede  the  outflow  of  his  mysticism.  He  speaks  with 
all  the  ethical  fervor  of  a  great  moral  teacher.  Take,  for 
example,  the  passage  at  the  opening  of  the  second 
book: — 

Nothing  is  more  welcome  than  to  hold  the  lofty  and  serene 
positions,  well  fortified  by  the  learning  of  the  wise,  from 
which  you  may  look  down  upon  others  and  see  them  wander- 
ing all  abroad  and  going  astray  in  their  search  for  the  path 
of  life,  see  the  contest  among  them  of  intellect,  the  rivalry  of 
birth,  the  striving  night  and  day  with  surpassing  effort  to 
struggle  up  to  the  summit  of  power  and  be  masters  of  the  world. 
O  miserable  minds  of  men !  O  blinded  breasts !  in  what  darkness 
of  life  and  in  how  great  dangers  is  passed  this  term  of  life, 
whatever  its  duration !  .  .  .  For  even  as  children  are  flurried 
and  dread  all  things  in  the  thick  darkness,  thus  we  in  the 
daylight  fear  at  times  things  not  a  whit  more  to  be  dreaded 
than  those  which  children  shudder  at  in  the  dark  and  fancy 
to  be  so.  This  terror,  therefore,  and  darkness  of  mind  must 
be  dispelled,  not  by  the  rays  of  the  sun  and  glittering  shafts 
of  day,  but  by  the  aspect  and  law  of  Nature. 

Thus  he  points  the  way  of  salvation,  but  when  we 
start  to  follow  him,  we  beat  ourselves  in  vain  against 
the  stone  walls  through  which  his  spirit  has  passed. 
Except  in  part  in  the  person  of  Augustine,  Rome  offers 
no  parallel,  and  in  modern  philosophy  we  are  reminded 
only  of  the  glass  polisher  of  Amsterdam.  For  Spinoza 


62    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

and  Lucretius  have  very  much  in  common,  including  their 
antipathy  to  the  popular  and  established  religion  of  the 
day. 

-  We  have  tarried  with  Lucretius  not  only  because  he 
is  a  fascinating  figure  in  himself,  but  because  in  a  sense 
he  is  the  best  example  of  the  one  really  great  element  of 
progress  which  had  been  accomplished  during  those 
long  centuries  of  the  Republic.  This  progress  consisted 
in  the  slow  and  gradual  rise  of  the  individual.  We  began 
our  chapter  at  the  time  when  Rome  was  filled  with  the 
cheerful  consciousness  of  her  own  nationality.  We  have 
seen  the  social  instinct  of  religion  gradually  weakening 
in  the  presence  of  great  material  prosperity.  Greece  had 
given  Rome  new  gods,  but  she  had  also  destroyed  the 
gods  which  Rome  already  possessed;  and  in  their  turn 
the  Greek  ideas  had  proved  insufficient.  Thoughtful 
men  were  turning  away  from  the  things  which  the  world 
held  dear;  they  were  striking  off  into  new  paths  of 
thought,  all  their  own.  Individualism  was  arising. 
With  the  development  of  that  individualism,  and  with 
the  problems  which  it  in  its  turn  created,  we  are  to  deal 
in  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE:  SALVATION 
BY   REASON  VERSUS   SALVATION  BY  FAITH 

OUR  first  two  chapters  have  been  in  the  nature  of  things 
more  or  less  introductory.  We  have  chronicled  three 
periods  through  which  Rome's  religious  consciousness 
passed,  and  at  the  close  of  the  last  chapter  we  found  our- 
selves on  the  threshold  of  a  fourth  period.  We  have  thus 
far  traced  religious  consciousness  from  its  birth  as  a 
purely  social  instinct,  where  a  man's  whole  worship 
was  directed  towards  influencing  the  gods  in  behalf  of 
the  propagation  of  the  race,  into  a  period  where  the 
purely  social  instinct  turned  into  a  national  instinct, 
and  where  men  prayed,  not  for  physical  increase  in 
general,  but  for  the  progress  and  power  of  the  nation. 
That  was  our  first  chapter.  Then  we  saw  the  rise  of  the 
instinct  of  superstition.  Whereas  in  the  first  two  periods 
man  had  been  conscious  of  his  own  strength,  and  had 
prayed  to  the  gods  rather  that  they  might  leave  him 
alone  and  not  prove  hostile  to  him,  because  he  felt  him- 
self confident  to  work  out  the  problem  alone  if  only  he 
were  not  interfered  with,  in  this  new  period,  with  the 
coming  of  Greek  influence,  and  his  own  exhaustion  after 
more  or  less  severe  contests,  he  feels  the  distinct  need 
of  the  gods,  not  in  a  negative,  but  rather  in  a  positive 


64    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

sense.  He  becomes  conscious  of  his  dependence  upon 
them,  and  with  this  sense  of  dependence  arises  a  feeling 
that  he  is  subject  to  their  caprice.  The  next  step  is  quickly 
taken.  If  he  is  subject  to  their  caprice,  he  must  do  what 
he  can  to  win  their  favor.  Hence  arises  the  instinct  of 
superstition.  But  in  the  presence  of  continued  pros- 
perity even  this  instinct  of  superstition  grows  dormant, 
and  religious  consciousness  reaches  its  lowest  ebb.  It 
is  then  that  the  reaction  sets  in  and  the  instinct  of  indi- 
vidualism begins. 

These  four  instincts  —  the  social,  the  national,  the 
superstitious,  and  the  individualistic  —  must  not  be 
thought  of  as  succeeding  one  another  in  the  way  in 
which  we  have  been  compelled  to  portray  them  here. 
The  characteristic  of  instincts  is  that  they  do  not  die, 
but  are  merely  submerged.  They  still  exist,  and  have  a 
way  of  coming  to  the  surface  when  we  least  expect  them. 
We  must  realize,  therefore,  that  in  describing  them  one 
after  the  other,  we  are  merely  indicating  the  order  in 
which  they  arose. 

The  political  period,  with  which  we  are  to  deal  to- 
day, is  the  first  three  centuries  of  the  Empire,  from  the 
accession  of  Augustus  to  the  death  of  Diocletian.  We 
are  to  study  the  rise  and  development  of  individualism 
in  religious  thought.  We  are  to  see  it  starting  from  one 
point  and  working  in  two  directions.  The  individual  is 
to  seek  his  salvation,  either  by  reason  and  knowledge, 
or  by  faith  and  worship.  Either  the  truth,  which  he  knows, 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       65 

shall  make  him  free ;  or  his  belief  in  the  truth,  which  he 
does  not  know.  These  two  tendencies  are  working  side 
by  side  from  the  beginning  of  our  period,  and  neither 
one  precedes  the  other;  but  it  so  happens  that  the  ideas 
of  salvation  by  knowledge  are  more  widespread  and  in- 
fluential in  the  first  two  centuries  of  our  period,  that  is, 
from  Augustus  through  Marcus  Aurelius;  whereas  the 
ideas  of  salvation  by  faith  are  more  prominent  in  the 
last  century.  It  will  be  well,  therefore,  to  discuss,  first, 
salvation  by  knowledge,  and  second,  salvation  by  faith. 
But  this  matter  of  individualism  is  a  very  delicate  one, 
and  we  can  see  its  outline  only  by  projecting  it  against 
the  background.  This  background  was  the  established 
religion  of  the  Roman  state.  With  it  accordingly  we 
must  begin  our  study. 

It  was  a  boy  of  nineteen  who  was  destined  to  take  up 
the  burden  which  Julius  Caesar  had  laid  down.  Listen 
to  Augustus's  own  words  regarding  this  crisis  in  his  life. 
They  are  preserved  to  us  in  the  brief ' '  Official  Statement ' ' 
of  his  life  activity,  which  he  prepared  a  few  months  be- 
fore his  death. 

When  I  was  nineteen,  I  raised  an  army  on  my  own  respon- 
sibility and  at  my  own  expense.  By  means  of  this  army  I 
restored  to  liberty  the  Republic,  which  had  been  oppressed  by 
the  domination  of  a  faction.  In  return  for  these  things  the 
Senate  passed  honorary  decrees  and  added  me  to  their  num- 
ber in  the  consulship  of  Pansa  and  Hirtius.  And  at  the  same 
time  they  gave  me  the  privilege  of  a  man  of  consular  dignity, 
namely,  that  of  expressing  my  opinion,  and  they  also  gave  me 


66    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  imperium.  And  they  ordered  me  to  see  to  it  in  my  capa- 
city of  propraetor,  together  with  the  consuls,  that  the  Re- 
public should  suffer  no  damage.  Moreover,  in  that  same 
year,  in  which  both  the  consuls  had  been  killed  in  battle,  the 
people  made  me  consul  and  also  one  of  the  three  men  appointed 
to  restore  the  Republic.  Those  who  had  killed  my  father, 
them  I  drove  into  exile  by  legal  enactment,  punishing  their 
deed.  And  afterwards,  when  they  waged  war  against  the 
Republic,  I  conquered  them  twice  in  a  drawn  battle. 

From  the  beginning  of  his  career  until  almost  the  close 
of  it,  the  greatest  strength  of  Augustus  lay  in  his  mar- 
velous knowledge  of  human  psychology.  He  was  armed, 
not  with  the  broadsword  of  military  force,  but  rather 
with  the  rapier  of  diplomatic  tact.  As  the  world  was  then 
constituted,  force  could  call  forth  only  force;  and  he  who 
took  the  sword  would  surely  perish  by  the  sword,  and 
revolution  would  have  been  continuous,  whereas  the 
play  of  the  rapier  was  after  all  in  the  nature  of  an  exhibi- 
tion. But  one  who  really  knows  human  nature  recog- 
nizes the  dominating  part  which  religion  always  plays ; 
and  no  really  great  statesman  has  ever  been  able  to  dis- 
regard it.  In  the  case  of  Augustus  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  if  we  take  religion  in  the  old  Roman  sense, 
he  was  a  great  religious  reformer.  His  purpose  was 
doubtless  to  establish  himself  and  his  descendants  upon 
the  throne,  but  his  outward  activity  was  almost  entirely 
directed  to  the  awakening  of  a  sentimental  revival  of 
the  ideal  of  Roma  Sterna.  In  his  own  consciousness 
there  was  no  crass  distinction  between  the  end  and  the 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       67 

means.  The  establishment  of  his  dynasty  had  come 
to  mean  to  him  the  only  salvation  for  his  people.  It 
was  of  course  a  theoretical  error,  as  old  as  the  world, 
and  yet  renewed  every  day,  whereby  a  man  feels  him- 
self appointed  as  the  savior  of  his  people.  It  was  none 
the  less  a  theoretical  error,  because,  in  the  case  of  Au- 
gustus, he  did  actually  accomplish  a  great  good  for  the 
people. 

With  a  quiet  unobtrusiveness,  which  was  characteris- 
tic of  all  that  he  did,  Augustus  set  about  the  task  of 
awakening  in  men's  minds  the  long-forgotten  chords  of 
patriotism;  and  the  instruments  which  he  used  to  make 
this  music  were  of  such  varied  kinds  that  each  man 
after  his  own  fashion  was  compelled  to  hear.  To  those  who 
were  very  deaf,  indeed,  architecture  spoke  in  the  reor- 
ganization of  the  city  of  Rome,  in  the  splendid  buildings 
of  the  Forum;  the  Palatine,  and  the  Campus  Martius; 
in  the  Basilica  Julia,  the  temple  of  Mars  Ultor,  the  Ara 
Pacis,  and,  most  conspicuous  of  all,  the  glistening  mar- 
ble temple  of  Apollo  on  the  Palatine.  Others  heard  the 
voice  of  Rome  in  the  recapture  of  the  standards  which 
Crassus  had  lost  to  the  Parthians,  an  event  of  such  su- 
preme importance  that  it  is  portrayed  on  the  centre  of 
the  breastplate  in  the  famous  statue  of  Augustus  from 
Prima  Porta.  Still  others  heard  the  poets*  song,  — a  Vir- 
gil, a  Horace,  a  Tibullus,  a  Propertius;  and  when  this 
dormant  instinct  of  patriotism  awaked,  behold  a  reor- 
ganized state  religion  in  which  every  man  might  join. 


68    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Under  the  new  regime  political  life  was  bound  to  become 
atrophied,  but  the  religious  life  opened  wider  and  wider 
possibilities.  We  cannot  here  go  into  all  the  details  of 
this  reorganization.  Idealist  though  he  was,  he  built 
here  as  always  upon  a  material  foundation.  The  fall  of 
the  state  religion  had  been  caused  to  a  large  extent  by 
the  neglect  of  the  priesthoods.  Those  priesthoods,  such 
as  the  augurs  and  pontiffs,  which  had  been  filled  with 
politicians,  must  be  taught  the  seriousness  of  their  reli- 
gious functions ;  those  which  did  not  permit  of  politics, 
and  had,  therefore,  been  neglected,  must  be  filled  and  kept 
filled,  and  the  dignity  and  honor  of  the  office  must  be  its 
own  reward.  But  if  men  were  ever  again  to  respect  the 
gods,  the  places  where  the  gods  were  worshiped  must  be 
restored  and  made  worthy  of  respect.  Hence  the  title 
which  men  gave  him,  "  Templorum  omnium  conditor  ac 
restitutor,"  and  the  long  list  of  restorations  in  the  Monu- 
mentum  Ancyranum :  "  The  temple  of  Apollo  on  the  Pala- 
tine with  its  porticos,  the  temple  of  Divus  Julius,  the 
Lupercal,  .  .  .  the  temples  of  Jupiter  Feretrius  and  of 
Jupiter  Tonans  on  the  Capitoline,  the  temple  of  Quiri- 
nus,  the  temple  of  Minerva,  the  temple  of  Juno  Regina, 
the  temple  of  Jupiter  Libertas  on  the  Aventine,  the 
temple  of  the  Lares  in  'summa  sacra  via/  the  temple 
of  the  Penates  in  the  Velia,  the  temple  of  Juventas,  the 
temple  of  the  Magna  Mater  on  the  Palatine  I  built  .  .  . 
eighty-two  temples  of  the  gods  in  the  city  I  in  my  sixth 
consulship  rebuilt  according  to  senatorial  decree,  no 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       69 

temple  being  omitted  which  at  that  time  liad  need  of 
repair." 

But  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm  of  the  masses  more  was 
needed  than  priests  and  temples.  There  must  be  the 
splendor  of  the  cult  as  well.  Hence  such  a  performance 
as  the  Ludi  Saeculares  of  B.C.  17,  whose  stone  protocol 
we  have  preserved  to  us  with  its  "carmen  composuit  Q. 
Homtius  Flaccus"  and  the  poem,  too,  which  Horace 
wrote  has  been  saved  for  us. 

Thus  was  laid  a  firm  foundation  of  material  things 
and  old-fashioned  ideas;  and  now  Augustus  was  free  to 
build  upon  it  and  to  construct  such  new  things  as  might 
serve  his  purpose.  The  building  of  the  great  white 
marble  temple  on  the  Palatine  was  doubtless  the  most 
conspicuous,  but  possibly  the  least  fruitful  of  his  inno- 
vations. After  all,  Apollo  was  the  god  whom  Augustus 
himself  chose  to  worship,  and  whatever  influence  the 
Palatine  cult  subsequently  had  was  owing  more  to  its 
material  gorgeousness  than  to  its  spiritual  appeal. 

There  was,  however,  another  innovation  which  af- 
fected the  people  of  Rome  far  more  deeply.  This  was 
the  reorganization  of  the  worship  of  the  Lares  at  the 
street  corners.  These  shrines  to  the  Lares  Compitales, 
built  at  the  crossing  of  the  streets,  had  long  been  the 
centres  of  informal  political  clubs,  clubs  which  Julius 
Caesar,  for  example,  had  found  so  difficult  to  control  that 
he  had  foolishly  tried  to  suppress  them. 

With  a  magic  touch,  —  tact  in  its  literal  sense,  — 


70    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Augustus  restored  these  clubs  and  gave  them  official 
recognition,  with  one  slight  change,  which  was  to  mean 
so  much.  Between  the  figures  of  the  Lares  was  to  stand 
from  henceforth  the  "Genius "of  Augustus,  that  old 
animistic  concept  of  the  divine  parallel.  Hereafter  when 
these  clubs  met,  they  worshiped  their  Lares,  and  in 
addition  the  ideal  of  the  emperor.  Thus  his  divine  paral- 
lel was  present  at  all  their  deliberations.  But  lasting  as 
was  the  hold  thus  obtained,  it  was  circumscribed  in  its 
area  and  confined  to  the  city  of  Rome. 

Thus  we  turn  to  the  most  important  religious  insti- 
tution in  the  Augustan  scheme,  the  establishment  of 
emperor  worship.  It  cannot  in  any  sense  be  affirmed  that 
Augustus  invented  emperor-worship,  nor  is  it  true  that 
he  introduced  it  into  Rome.  It  was  in  the  world  long 
before  his  day,  and  to  a  certain  degree  it  had  already 
entered  Rome  before  he  came  to  power.  It  is  neverthe- 
less strictly  true  that  he  controlled  it  and  by  very  deli- 
cate manipulation,  by  processes  of  encouragement  and 
discouragement,  now  by  toleration  and  again  by  ener- 
getic prohibition,  he  shaped  it  and  welded  it  into  the 
instrument  which  it  was  to  be  in  the  subsequent  history 
of  the  Empire.  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize  the  power 
that  emperor-worship  possessed  during  the  centuries  to 
come.  It  was  in  a  sense  the  only  universal  form  of  re- 
ligion in  the  Roman  Empire.  We  have,  to  be  sure,  in- 
scriptions to  Jupiter  from  all  parts  of  Rome's  territory, 
and  his  cult  might  seem  as  universal  as  that  of  the  em- 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       71 

perors.  But  this  is  an  error.  The  name  Jupiter  in  these 
inscriptions  conceals  a  score  of  totally  different  deities, 
for  in  the  nature  of  things  the  chief  god  of  each  region 
would  readily  be  identified  with  Jupiter.  But  in  the  case 
of  the  emperor  it  was  one  and  the  same  deity  from  Ha- 
drian's Wall  in  Britain  to  the  upper  cataracts  of  the 
Nile,  and  from  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  to  the  banks  of 
the  Euphrates.  And  when,  in  B.C.  29,  Augustus  dedi- 
cated the  temple  of  Divus  Julius  in  the  Forum,  on  the 
spot  where  Caesar's  body  had  been  burned,  he  was  be- 
ginning the  organization  of  the  one  great  conservative 
force  which  was  to  hold  the  Empire  together. 

It  is  very  interesting  in  this  connection  to  observe 
that  the  form  which  emperor- worship  took  in  the  Roman 
Empire  was  one  consonant  with  Western  ideals,  in  a 
word,  that  the  Oriental  idea  of  the  worship  of  the  living 
emperor  was  changed  into  the  worship  of  the  dead  em- 
peror. The  compromise  was  effected  by  permitting  the 
worship  of  the  Genius  of  the  living  emperor;  and  even 
in  the  latter  days,  when  under  Diocletian  Oriental  ideas 
had  almost  entirely  conquered  the  West,  and  though 
the  living  emperor  was  to  all  practical  intents  and  pur- 
poses worshiped,  a  regard  for  good  form  still  held  a 
thin  veil  of  adjectives  and  abstract  nouns  between  the 
physical  person  of  the  living  emperor  and  the  gaze  of 
the  worshiper. 

And  so  Augustus  died,  and  left  his  scheme  of  things 
to  his  successors  to  be  tried  out  in  the  succeeding  cen- 


72    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

turies.  It  is  very  wonderful  how  successful  that  scheme 
was  and  how  capable  of  rational  alteration;  and  it  is 
surprising  to  what  an  extent  it  controlled  the  masses 
of  the  people  in  the  two  hundred  years  which  followed. 
We  have  no  need  to  pass  through  the  outward  political 
events  of  these  years,  for  we  have  sufficient  material  at 
our  disposal  in  the  records  of  the  inner  life.  We  have 
gained  our  background,  and  we  are  now  to  trace  the 
rise  of  individualism. 

If  one  had  spoken  to  a  Roman  in  the  fourth  century, 
or  even  in  the  third  century,  before  Christ,  concerning 
his  soul,  its  sinfulness,  and  its  need  of  salvation,  there 
would  have  been  no  discussion  possible,  for  the  person 
addressed  would  not  have  understood  what  it  was  all 
about.  It  is  very  difficult  for  us  to  put  ourselves  in  such 
a  position  of  innocence ;  but  we  can  at  least  realize  that 
there  are  certain  Oriental  nations  of  the  present  day  who 
do  not  understand  these  concepts,  who  have  indeed  a 
sense  of  right  and  wrong,  but  who  have  not  the  conscious- 
ness of  an  individual  soul,  and  hence  can  neither  feel  its 
guilt  nor  desire  its  salvation.  The  origin  of  this  idea  of 
the  personal  soul  is  obscured  in  great  mystery.  It  was 
not  present  at  the  time  of  the  Punic  Wars.  We  see  only 
scanty  traces  of  it  in  the  literature  of  the  Ciceronian  age, 
and  yet  in  the  time  of  Seneca  it  was  absolutely  prevalent. 
Various  explanations  may  be  suggested.  The  theory  most 
commonly  advanced  is  that  these  ideas  were  neurotic, 
that  they  are'  the  characteristics  of  neurasthenia,  and 


.RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       73 

that  so  long  as  Rome  was  healthy  and  robust  she  knew 
nothing  of  these  things.  There  is  no  question  but  that  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Empire  neurasthenia  was  prevalent 
among  the  upper  classes.  The  slight  value  attached 
to  human  life  and  the  ease  of  suicide  are  indications 
of  this  state  of  affairs.  But  we  can  scarcely  conceive 
of  the  whole  mass  of  the  people  as  being  neurotic,  and 
yet  this  concept  of  the  soul  and  its  salvation  is  quite 
as  common  among  the  lower  and  the  middle  classes  as 
among  the  upper  ones.  On  the  other  hand,  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  prosperity  and  luxury  had  tended  to 
break  down  the  strong  racial  instincts  of  more  primitive 
times.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  there  is  much  truth 
in  the  statement  that  self-indulgence  may  assist  in  giving 
birth  to  the  concept  of  self.  Certainly,  too,  the  splitting- 
off  and  the  differentiation  from  the  mass  are  very  much 
increased.  But  the  essential  thought  is  still  lacking.  We 
may  obtain  a  soul,  but  how  do  we  explain  its  sense  of 
guilt  ?  The  only  explanation  which  seems  in  any  wise 
satisfactory  is  that  these  ideas  were  imported  from  the 
Orient  partly  through  the  doctrines  of  the  later  Greek 
philosophy,  which  was  itself  tinged  with  the  Orient, 
partly  through  direct  contact  with  the  religions  of  the 
Orient.  In  other  words,  we  have  once  again  the  spec- 
tacle of  Rome  owing  a  large  debt  to  foreign  influence. 
Such  an  individualism  seems  also  the  result  of  an  exces- 
sive cosmopolitanism .  Once  given  the  idea  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  with  all  the  national  boundaries  removed, 


74    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  ordinary  man  who  is  capable  of  an  enthusiasm  for 
his  own  country  cannot  rise  to  a  love  of  the  whole  world, 
and  thus  reverts  by  reaction  to  the  selfish  individualistic 
standpoint.  The  teachings  of  a  philosophy  such  as  Stoi- 
cism and  the  universal  ideas  of  Oriental  religion  tend 
alike  to  individualism. 

But  however  these  ideas  may  have  arisen,  they  are 
everywhere  present  cluring  these  centuries  of  the  Empire. 
Man  is  an  individual,  and  as  such  has  certain  obligations 
and  responsibilities  toward  the  gods.  These  obligations 
are  no  longer  primarily  social;  they  are  distinctly  per- 
sonal, and  man  is  conscious  that  he  has  not  fulfilled 
them.  To  add  to  the  seriousness  of  the  situation,  not 
only  is  human  life  itself  very  short  and  uncertain,  but 
the  world  itself  is  coming  to  an  end.  Must  this  indi- 
vidual self  perish  or  is  there  a  life  beyond?  Is  this  human 
soul  capable  of  a  life  after  death?  And  how  can  it  purify 
itself  so  as  to  enter  into  that  life  ? 

These  are  the  questions  which  men  have  put  to  them- 
selves ever  since,  but  which  the  Romans  are  now  asking 
for  the  first  time;  and  the  answer  is  of  extreme  interest, 
because  it  is  so  particularly  pagan  and  Greek.  It  comes 
to'us  out  of  that  far-away  Greek  world,  and  though  most 
of  us  do  not  believe  it,  there  is  always  the  chance  that 
for  the  Greeks  themselves  it  may  have  been  true.  Cer- 
tainly it  was  not  true  for  the  Romans.  The  answer  is : 
Sin  is  ignorance;  to  know  the  truth  is  to  do  it.  Know- 
ledge, therefore  perfect  knowledge,  guarantees  freedom 
from  sin.  The  wise  man  is  the  holy  man. 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       75 

But  if  this  be  true,  and  if  the  world  be  sooivto  come  to 
an  end,  then  all  knowledge  is  not  equally  profitable,  but 
rather  that  knowledge  which  makes  for  righteousness; 
and  if  life  be  so  short  and  uncertain,  then  the  wise  man 
will  renounce  the  other  things  of  life  and  give  himself 
over  to  the  better  part.  It  is  the  new  scale  of  valuation 
which  the  idea  of  the  approaching  end  of  the  world 
brings  with  it.  It  is  the  gospel  of  renunciation.  It  is 
philosophy  and  the  cure  of  souls,  and  its  first  and  great- 
est spokesman  is  Seneca. 

We  may  think  what  we  will  of  Seneca's  personal 
character;  we  may  despise  him  as  insincere  and  time- 
serving; we  may  even  look  on  his  death  as  mixed  with 
melodrama;  but  we  cannot  honestly  deny  that  he  was 
a  great  power  for  good  in  the  particular  class  of  society 
to  which  he  ministered.  And  "  minister "  is  the  correct 
word,  for  very  few  men  ever  gave  themselves  more 
unstintedly  to]  the  work  of  advising  and  helping  their 
fellows.  It  is  often  peculiar  advice  that  Seneca  gives, 
but  we  must  remember  that  his  audience  was  very 
peculiar.  His  words  often  seem  full  of  affectation,  but 
we  must  remember  that  his  age  was  even  more  full  of 
poseurs  than  is  our  own.  Thus  he  moved  in  his  circle 
of  aristocrats  burdened  with  ennui,  bon  viveurs  wearied 
by  satiety,  and  roues  who  mistook  exhaustion  for  re- 
pentance, and  he  preached  to  them  all  according  to 
their  need.  He  urged  upon  them  self-examination  and 
confession ;  and  the  reward  which  he  set  before  them  was 


76    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

that  which  they  sought  above  all  else,  freedom  from  the 
terror  of  death.  His  methods  were  followed  afterwards 
by  many  others.  Those  most  familiar  to  us  are  Epictetus 
and  Marcus  Aurelius.  It  is  an  interesting  movement, 
but  one  of  relatively  small  dimensions ;  and  we  turn  with 
a  certain  sense  of  relief  from  this  philosophy  of  the  salon 
and  the  boudoir  to  the  philosophy  of  the  market-place. 
In  many  ages  of  the  world  the  chosen  few  have  sought 
salvation  by  knowledge,  but  it  is  only  very  rarely  that 
the  movement  has  extended  to  the  masses.  But  the  age 
of  exclusiveness  was  giving  way;  salvation  was  not  for 
the  few  but  for  the  many ;  and  if  knowledge  was  salvation, 
then  knowledge  must  be  brought  to  the  masses.  And  so 
the  Cynic  preachers  and  their  kin  began  their  mission- 
ary journeyings,  until  the  bearded,  unkempt  philosopher, 
with  his  staff  and  his  cloak,  became  one  of  the  familiar 
figures  of  the  crowded  market-place  and  the  lonely  high- 
road. In  this  respect,  at  least,  they  were  like  the  Fran- 
ciscans of  a  later  day  —  in  that  they  were  trying  to  dis- 
tribute among  the  multitudes  the  bread  that  had  been 
hitherto  reserved  for  the  masters.  It  was  one  of  those 
moments,  which  come  at  great  intervals  in  this  world 
of  ours,  when  those  who  have  determine  to  share  with 
those  who  have  not.  Sometimes  it  is  knowledge  that  is 
given,  sometimes  spiritual  help,  sometimes  food  and 
lodging;  but  whether  it  be  an  Apollonius  of  Tyana  and 
the  bands  of  wandering  Cynic  philosophers,  or  whether 
it  be  Saint  Francis  and  his  brethren,  or  whether  it  be 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       77 

General  Booth  and  the  Salvation  Army,  it  all  goes  back 
to  the  same  universal  principle.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that 
for  our  knowledge  of  these  Cynic  preachers  we  are  largely 
indebted  to  their  satirist  Lucian,  the  vision  of  them  is 
by  no  means  contemptible.  They  are  not  many  of  them 
really  great  men ;  they  are  given  to  rhetoric  rather  than 
reasoning;  and  they  are  quite  capable  of  working  pseudo- 
miracles  in  support  of  their  claims;  but  there  is  a  genuine 
earnestness  about  most  of  them,  an  enthusiasm  and  an 
absorption  in  their  work,  which  in  many,  cases  raises 
them  into  the  high  circle  of  those  who  give  their  life  for 
the  good  of  their  fellows.  Even  Lucian  seems  to  feel 
something  of  this,  and  we  suspect  that  below  the  sharp 
tongue  of  the  satirist  beats  a  heart  that  would  find  it 
easier  to  sympathize  with  them  than  with  most  of  the 
other  creatures  of  his  day.  And  so,  with  some  regret, 
we  leave  them  standing  on  the  temple  steps  or  on  the 
street  corners,  drawing  a  gradually  increasing  crowd 
around  them,  entertaining  them  and  attracting  them  for 
a  while,  and  then,  when  they  have  them  in  their  control, 
teaching  them  of  the  Better  Way. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  gospel  of  wisdom 
and  of  stoical  perfection  would  appeal  to  the  masses. 
It  was  help  from  without  rather  than  from  within  that 
they  were  seeking.  It  was  a  power  outside  of  themselves 
which  was  to  save  them,  a  power  which  would  save  them 
in  spite  of  their  own  weakness.  And  their  hold  over  this 
power,  their  control  of  it,  depended  not  on  knowledge 


>8    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

but  on  faith.  This  power  came  to  them  in  the  guise  of 
the  deities  of  the  Orient;  there  were  a  host  of  these  deities 
but  the  differences  between  them  were  largely  in  exter- 
nals. They  had  been  creeping  unobtrusively  into  Rome 
from  the  time  of  the  Second  Punic  War,  when  the  great 
Mother  of  the  Gods  reached  Italy,  but  they  did  not  at- 
tain to  any  great  prominence  until  the  third  century. 
A  brief  consideration  of  this  period  will  show  the  reason 
for  their  increase  in  power. 

In  our  study  of  Roman  history  we  are  very  apt  to 
neglect  the  third  century.  From  a  superficial  standpoint, 
it  does  not  seem  as  important  as  the  second  century, 
when  Rome's  territorial  expansion  reached  its  extreme 
point;  or  as  the  fourth  century,  when  Rome  was  visibly 
declining  in  prestige.  And  yet  in  many  ways  it  is  more 
important  than  either  of  those  centuries,  for  it  repre- 
sents the  interesting  period  of  transition ;  and  in  this  third 
century  may  be  found  implicit  not  only  what  happened 
in  the  fourth  century,  but  also  what  happened  in  many 
of  the  succeeding  centuries.  For  it  is  in  a  sense  true  that 
in  this  third  century  modern  Europe  arose.  In  it  we  see 
cosmopolitanism  carried  to  its  extreme.  The  brother- 
hood of  the  world,  which  the  Stoic  philosopher  had  long 
preached  as  an  unattainable  ideal,  was  realized  at  least 
in  theory.  For  several  generations  before  the  beginning 
of  the  century  the  geographical  centre  of  the  Empire 
had  moved  from  Rome  eastwards.  Those  emperors  who 
did  their  duty  in  fighting  for  Rome  were  of  necessity 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       79 

absent  from  the  city  for  long  periods  of  time.  The  tend- 
ency, which  reached  its  logical  expression  in  the  found- 
ation of  Constantinople  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourth 
century,  was  already  in  action.  But  this  transfer  to 
Constantinople  would  have  been  impossible  had  the 
way  not  been  prepared  for  it  by  a  certain  act  of  Cara- 
calla. 

From  the  beginning  Rome  had  safeguarded  the  privi- 
lege of  citizenship ;  she  had  restricted  it  so  that  it  attained 
and  kept  a  very  high  value.  "With  a  great  price  ob- 
tained I  this  freedom"  tells  one  half  of  the  story,  and 
the  proud  answer,  "  But  I  was  born  free"  tells  the  other. 
It  is  difficult  for  us  to-day  to  realize  the  preciousness  of 
this  possession.  Our  modern  world  offers  few  parallels. 
In  Rome  the  last  wholesale  admission  of  new  citizens  by 
legislation  had  occurred  ninety  years  before  the  birth  of 
Christ,  and  it  was  granted  then  only  to  put  an  end  to 
a  very  dangerous  war.  But  now,  in  the  year  212,  Cara- 
calla  extends  Roman  citizenship  to  the  people  of  the 
provinces.  There  were  several  reasons  for  this  action. 
In  the  first  place,  for  generations  the  emperors  had  come 
from  provincial  families.  Their  interests  in  the  pro- 
vinces, therefore,  were  very  strong.  It  was  also  an  age 
when  the  jurists  had  great  power,  and  universal  citizen- 
ship was  one  of  the  jurists'  ideals.  But  the  controlling 
reason  was  one  of  economics.  There  were  great  financial 
advantages  in  this  change. 

But  we  are  not  so  much  interested  in  the  change  it- 


8o    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

self  as  in  the  results  which  followed  from  it.  These  were 
indeed  curious.  So  long  as  Rome  had  stood  apart  from 
the  provinces,  the  people  of  the  provinces  looked  up  to 
Rome  as  the  ideal,  and  tried  to  imitate  her  ways  as 
closely  as  possible.  But  now  that  they  had  all,  as  it 
were,  become  a  part  of  Rome,  the  mystery  was  tempo- 
rarily destroyed.  Instead  of  imitating  Rome,  why  should 
they  not  introduce  their  own  ideas?  Rome  was  no  longer 
on  the  Tiber.  It  was  everywhere  where  citizens  were 
gathered  together.  Thus  Rome  ceased  to  be  a  geographi- 
cal point  and  became  a  spiritual  idea.  In  a  subsequent 
chapter  we  shall  see  a  still  further  development  of  these 
tendencies,  when  the  city  itself  gradually  regains  its 
spiritual  ascendency.  But  for  the  present  the  virtue  of 
Rome  had  gone  out  of  her. 

It  was  the  East  which  was  attracting  all  the  attention. 
The  family  of  the  Severi,  who  occupied  the  throne  for  the 
first  third  of  this  century,  had  come  out  of  Syria;  and 
still  later  came  Aurelian,  whose  glory  was  the  conquest 
of  Palmyra  and  the  capture  of  Zenobia;  and  in  the  clos- 
ing years  of  the  century  reigned  the  Dalmatian  peasant, 
Diocletian,  whose  favorite  residence  was  Nicomedia. 
It  was  in  every  sense  a  triumph  of  the  Orient,  and  it  is 
therefore  a  period  of  peculiar  interest  to  us  to-day  be- 
cause we  too  are  facing  a  grave  Oriental  problem.  It 
was,  however,  at  this  time  much  more  than  a  question 
of  immigration  and  of  commercial  relations.  It  was  the 
battle  royal  of  Eastern  versus  Western  thought,  a  battle 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       81 

which  in  a  sense  resulted  in  a  compromise,  the  traces 
of  which  we  can  still  see  to-day. 

To  realize  the  power  of  Eastern  ideas  in  Rome,  we 
have  but  to  recall  the  picture  of  the  Emperor  Elagabalus, 
and  the  meteoric  symbol  of  El  Gabal;  we  have  but  to 
remember  the  temple  on  the  Palatine,  whither  Elaga- 
balus sought  to  bring  together  all  that  was  holiest  in 
Rome,  a  pathetic  catalogue,  as  the  Vita  Elagabali  gives 
it:  "And  he  consecrated  El  Gabal  on  the  Palatine  Hill, 
near  the  imperial  palace,  and  he  built  him  a  temple, 
and  he  desired  to  bring  into  that  temple  the  image  of 
the  Magna  Mater  and  the  fire  of  Vesta  and  the  Palladium 
and  the  shields  and  all  things  that  were  sacred  to  the 
Romans;  and  he  strove  to  bring  it  to  pass  that  no  god 
save  El  Gabal  should  be  worshiped  in  Rome." 

A  half  a  century  later,  Aurelian  built  in  the  Campus 
Martius  the  great  temple  to  his  Sun-God,  the  Deus 
Sol  Invictus,  and  at  the  close  of  the  century,  Diocletian, 
in  a  court  which  was  entirely  governed  by  Oriental 
etiquette,  boasted  that  his  power  depended  upon  the 
favor  of  Mithras. 

The  secret  of  the  fascination  which  the  Orient  exer- 
cised over  Rome  lay  in  its  powerful  appeal  to  the  emo- 
tions. The  idea  that  the  world  was  coming  to  an  end 
was  to  a  large  degree  correct.  The  feeling,  for  example, 
of  such  a  man  as  Marcus  Aurelius,  that  he  was  living  in 
an  old  and  weary  world,  was  much  more  than  a  mere 
reflex  of  neurasthenia.  It  was  true  that  the  world  was 


82    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

old  and  weary,  and  that  it  was  to  end  and  to  give  place 
to  a  new  order  of  things.  Rome  was  experiencing  an 
emotional  old  age.  It  was  not  calm  and  contemplative 
joy  called  forth  by  knowledge,  but  the  delirious,  emo- 
tional stimulus  of  the  sensuous  Orient  that  she  craved. 

And  so  we  turn  to  the  consideration  of  our  problem, 
salvation  by  faith,  and  we  find  it  in  the  religion  of  the 
Orient. 

Under  the  old  Roman  regime  it  never  would  have 
occurred  to  any  one  to  attempt  to  change  a  man's  re- 
ligion. A  man  was  born  into  his  religion,  and  so  long  as 
he  lived  a  sane  life  he  continued  in  it.  His  religion 
covered  a  very  large  surface.  It  concluded  his  duty 
toward  his  whole  environment.  He  did  not  even  think 
of  himself  as  apart  from  this  environment.  His  Ego  was 
not  lost  in  a  larger  social  consciousness,  for  it  had  never 
as  yet  come  into  being.  Religion  was  a  social  and  there- 
fore a  national  thing.  Each  nation  had  its  own  gods.  If 
another  nation's  gods  proved  desirable,  Rome  might 
adopt  those  gods  in  case  she  succeeded  in  conquering 
that  nation.  But  it  was  unheard  of  that  any  man  should 
be  interested  in  another  man's  religion  to  the  extent  of 
attempting  to  alter  it. 

But  in  the  Orient  religion  had  long  passed  out  of  this 
epoch  and  into  the  epoch  of  universality.  Religion  was 
not  bounded  by  nationality.  It  belonged  to  the  whole 
world,  and  was  therefore  the  property  of  each  individual. 
Thus  by  the  very  process  of  generalization  it  had  be- 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       83 

come  specific.  But  more  than  this,  these  Oriental  religions 
posited  the  existence  of  the  soul  and  acknowledged  its 
sinfulness.  That  was  the  greatest  impact  of  their  appeal. 
They  could  purify  from  sin,  and  by  this  purification 
they  held  out  the  promise  of  immortality.  Religion  was 
not  a  matter  of  the  nation,  nor  even  of  classes  in  society. 
In  its  presence  all  social  distinction  broke  down.^  Men 
were  all  alike  sinful  individuals. 

We  can  readily  see  the  force  of  these  ideas  among  the 
lower  classes  and,  by  psychological  reaction,  among  the 
upper  classes  as  well.  But  these  were  not  the  only  ap- 
peals of  the  Orient.  The  character  of  their  priesthoods 
had  its  effect.  In  Rome  the  priesthood  had  been  an 
incidental  thing,  merely  one  element  in  a  man's  social 
and  political  life.  But  these  priests  of  the  Orient  were 
given  over  entirely  to  religion.  They  had  vowed  their 
lives  to  it.  It  is  the  same  appeal  that  the  monastic  or- 
ders made  centuries  later.  We  must  not,  however,  think 
of  these  Oriental  religions  as  appealing  exclusively  to  the 
emotions.  They  made  an  intellectual  appeal  as  well,  for 
it  was  literally  true  that  wise  men  had  come  out  of  the 
East,  and  the  deepest  learning  of  the  day  belonged  to 
the  Orient. 

And  last  but  not  least,  however  varying  the  value 
which  attached  to  their  individual  ethical  doctrines  may 
have  been,  the  fact  that  these  doctrines  must  be  prac- 
ticed, and  that  their  religion  required  activity,  introduced 
at  once  a  moral  element  of  a  very  high  order.  They  were 


84    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

to  be  saved  by  faith,  but  their /faith  must  be  made  mani- 
fest by  works. 

The  Oriental  deities  who  were  present  in  Rome  during 
this  third  century  came  in  the  main  from  four  great 
regions :  Phrygia,  Egypt,  Syria,  Persia.  They  were  very 
numerous,  but  not  only  did  those  from  the  same  region 
have  certain  characteristics  in  common,  but  all  of  them, 
irrespective  of  their  provenance,  acquired  gradually  cer- 
tain similar  qualities.  It  is  extremely  interesting  to  ob- 
serve that  in  every  case  there  was  a  tendency  whereby 
those  doctrines,  which  had  been  originally  physical  and 
carnal,  gradually  took  on  a  spiritual  and  religious  char- 
acter. For  our  purposes  to-day  it  will  suffice  to  choose 
three  of  these  gods,  one  each  from  three  of  the  four  re- 
gions :  the  Magna  Mater  from  Phrygia,  Isis  from  Egypt, 
Mithras  from  Persia. 

We  have  already  chronicled  the  introduction  of  the 
Magna  Mater  in  the  time  of  the  Second  Punic  War.  It 
is  important  to  observe  that  she  came  in  as  an  authorized 
cult  of  the  Roman  state,  a  position  of  vantage  which 
Isis  reached  with  great  difficulty  and  Mithras  never  at 
all.  This  was  a  decided  advantage,  and  enabled  her  to 
offer  shelter  to  many  minor  deities,  who  were  never  for- 
mally accepted  by  the  State.  In  later  times  the  charac- 
teristic feature  of  the  cult  of  the  Magna  Mater  was  the 
taurobolium,  the  sacrifice  of  a  bull  in  such  a  fashion  that 
the  worshiper,  placing  himself  beneath  the  grating  upon 
which  the  bull  was  slain,  was  bathed  in  the  blood  of  the 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       85 

victim.^  We  are  here  in  the  fortunate  position  of  being 
able  to  trace  the  development  of  this  idea.  In  its  primi- 
tive significance  the  worshiper  who  drank  of  the  blood 
of  the  sacrifice  partook  of  the  strength  of  the  god,  that 
is,  of  the  bull.  It  is  the  ancient  custom  of  "eating  the 
god,'*  the  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  communion  be- 
tween god  and  man.  We  must  rid  ourselves  of  all  ideas 
of  symbolism.  Man  partook  physically  of  the  god,  and 
so  the  god  entered  carnally  into  him.  But  in  the  course 
of  time  this  crass  idea  suffered  a  change  and  became 
spiritualized.  The  bull  became  a  symbol  of  the  mystic 
bull,  the  author  of  creation  and  of  resurrection.  When  a 
man  descended  into  the  trench,  he  died,  went  down  into 
the  grave,  and  was  buried ;  and  the  blood  which  was  shed 
was  the  blood  of  purification.  Being  purified,  he  was 
born  into  newness  of  life  and  came  forth  resurrected  "in 
seternum  renatus,"  "born  again  into  eternity/'  an  object 
of  adoration  to  the  assembled  worshipers. 

The  Great  Mother  had  the  advantage  of  being  early 
accepted  by  the  Roman  State.  Isis  and  Osiris,  whose 
cult  seems  to  have  been  known  in  Rome  as  early  as  Sulla, 
fought  their  way  with  very  great  difficulty  into  official 
recognition.  The  Second  Triumvirate  decreed  a  temple 
to  Isis,  but  the  imbroglio  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  made 
the  gods  of  Egypt  so  hateful  to  Rome  that  this  temple 
was  never  built,  and  it  was  only  after  severe  persecu- 
tion that  her  cult  was  formally  recognized  by  Caligula. 
*  And  yet  these  Egyptian  gods  had  one  great  advan- 


86    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

tage.  In  the  Serapeum  at  Alexandria  they  came  under 
Greek  influence  and  were  thoroughly  hellenized.  Thence 
they  came  into  Rome  with  the  same  preliminary  advan- 
tage that  the  Magna  Mater  had  had ;  and  had  it  not  been 
for  Cleopatra,  they  would  have  received  official  recog- 
nition much  earlier.  The  persecution  in  itself  was  of 
course  a  great  assistance  to  their  popularity,  but  an  even 
greater  cause  of  popularity  was  the  ease  with  which  they 
could  be  adapted  to  the  current  philosophical  system, 
especially  to  the  doctrines  of  what  was  known  as  Heno- 
theism,  the  theory  that  after  all  there  was  but  one  god, 
and  the  multitude  of  gods  were  but  various  phases  of 
this  one  god,  various  aspects  of  his  being,  called  by 
various  names. 

The  favor  with  which  their  cult  was  received  is  attested 
by  the  frequent  references  in  literature,  by  a  large  body 
of  inscriptions,  and  by  a  mass  of  votive  offerings  on  the 
site  of  their  temples  near  Santa  Maria  sopra  Minerva. 
Here  again  we  have  another  instance  of  the  spiritualiz- 
ing of  the  cult.  The  old  Egyptian  idea  of  purity  was 
simply  that  of  ceremonial  purification,  of  the  cleansing 
of  the  body.  But  gradually  this  physical  idea  became . 
spiritual.  The  purification  of  the  body  was  only  sym- 
bolic of  the  purification  of  the  soul.  If  the  worshipers 
would  purify  their  bodies  in  the  service  of  Isis,  Isis  would 
herself  purify  their  souls.  Thus  arose  the  idea  of  real 
chastity  and  the  "nights  sacred  to  Isis,"  with  which 
the  elegiac  poet  so  often  chides  his  mistress.  Here,  too, 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       87 

there  was  abundant  hope  of  immortality,  harking  back 
to  the  oldest  days  of  the  Egyptian  religion.  The  rise  of 
the  idea  of  immortality  is  undatable  in  Egypt;  and  it 
sometimes  seems  as  if,  in  the  climate  which  did  so  much 
to  preserve  the  body,  the  idea  of  the  immortal  life  of  the 
soul  suggested  itself  naturally. 

But  there  was  still  another  reason  why  Isis  exerted 
such  a  hold  over  the  Roman  people.  The  solemnity  and 
the  dignity  of  the  worship  and  the  magic  power  of  the 
ritual  were  all  akin  to  their  own  older  ideas  of  religion. 
It  is  no  great  strain  on  the  imagination  to  picture  the 
daily  services :  the  band  of  the  faithful  assembled  before 
dawn  in  the  temple  precincts;  the  solemn  opening  of  the 
sanctuary  by  the  white-robed  priests,  the  unveiling  of 
the  sacred  image,  and  the  salutation  of  the  dawn,  as  the 
sun  rose  over  the  summit  of  the  Sabine  Hills,  and  filled 
with  gold  the  limpid  air  of  the  early  Roman  morning; 
and  then  the  second  service,  the  farewell  to  the  day, 
as  the  sun  was  setting  behind  the  Montes  Vaticani ;  and 
leaving  painted  in  the  sky  the  promise  of  the  dawn  of 
yet  another  day. 

But  all  these  cults  of  the  Orient  fade  into  absolute  in- 
significance in  comparison  with  that  of  Mithras.  No 
matter  what  a  man's  beliefs  may  be,  the  story  of  Mith- 
ras touches  the  depths  of  his  being,  not  because  of  its 
romantic  interest,  but  because  of  its  profoundly  reli- 
gious content ;  or  perhaps  we  ought  more  truly  to  say, 
because  its  religion  is  so  thoroughly  in  accord  with  mod- 


88    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

ern  ideas.  We  cannot  here  trace  in  detail  the  story  of 
the  wandering  of  the  god  Mithras,  out  of  the  theology  of 
India  into  that  of  Persia,  out  of  Persia  into  Asia  Minor, 
and  out  of  Asia  Minor  into  Rome;  where  his  power 
grew,  at  first,  with  Pompey's  Cilician  pirates,  then  es- 
pecially under  the  Flavians,  and  most  of  all  at  the  end 
of  the  third  century  under  Diocletian.  It  was  not  sim- 
ply a  religion;  it  was  an  atmosphere  of  Oriental  ideas 
in  religion,  politics,  science,  and  etiquette.  It  appealed 
so  strongly  to  the  court  of  Diocletian  that  the  West 
stood  in  a  graver  danger  of  being  conquered  by  Asia 
then  than  even  at  the  hands  of  the  Mohammedans,  and 
yet  the  religion  of  Mithras  never  became  an  acknow- 
ledged religion  of  the  Roman  State. 

As  is  but  natural  we  know  little  of  the  mysteries  them- 
selves, with  their  hierarchy  of  worshipers.  The  initiated 
were  divided  into  seven  grades,  whose  names  we  know : 
CORAX;  GRYPHUS  (?);  MILES;  LEO;  PERSES;  HELIO- 
DROMUS;  PATER.  The  first  three  grades  were  not  ad- 
mitted to  the  mysteries  proper.  To  be  admitted  there, 
one  must  have  passed  beyond  Miles  into  Leo.  Those 
who  had  attained  the  seventh  grade,  PATER,  occupied 
as  Father  a  position  of  superiority  over  all  the  other  six 
grades,  whose  members  were  known  as  Fratres,  or 
Brethren.  The  transition  from  one  grade  to  another  was 
effected  by  picturesque  and  terrifying  ordeals  of  initia- 
tion. Of  the  ceremonies  of  worship  we  know  little,  and 
such  little  as  we  know  is  derived  from  chance  references, 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       89 

especially  among  the  Church  Fathers,  and  from  a  study 
of  the  places  where  the  worship  occurred.  These  places 
of  worship  are  characterized  by  two  peculiarities ;  they 
are  always  subterranean,  at  first  in  natural  caves  and 
then  in  artificial  ones,  and  in  the  case  of  private  chapels 
at  least,  in  the  cellar  of  the  house ;  and  they  were  limited 
in  size  so  that  not  more  than  one  hundred  worshipers 
could  be  accommodated  in  one  cave.  When  the  num- 
ber of  the  faithful  outgrew  the  capacity  of  the  cave, 
another  cave  was  prepared  alongside  of  it.  Thus  at 
Heddernheim,  in  Germany,  we  find  three  caves ;  at  Car- 
nuntum,  four;  at  Ostia,  five.  The  interior  arrangement 
of  the  caves  is  generally  the  same.  Along  each  of  the 
long  sides  runs  a  podium,  doubtless  intended  to  accommo- 
date the  worshipers  in  a  kneeling  position.  At  the  upper 
end  of  the  cave  stood  the  altars,  and  between  them  on 
the  rear  wall  the  relief  of  Mithras  slaying  the  bull. 

Of  the  theological  doctrines  of  Mithras  we  know  but 
little,  and  that  in  a  somewhat  confused  way,  when  we 
try  to  fit  together  the  representations  in  the  monuments 
and  the  references  of  the  Christian  controversialists, 
who  were  of  course  its  enemies. 

Mithras  himself  is  represented  as  born  from  a  rock  at 
the  dawn  of  the  day,  while  shepherds  look  on  in  adora- 
tion. His  struggles  and  trials  are  pictured,  and  especi- 
ally his  slaying  of  the  bull.  This  he  does  against  his 
own  will,  to  give  immortality  to  mankind  and  to  re- 
deem them  from  death. 


90    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

In  the  cult  itself  we  know  that  there  was  a  form  of 
baptism,  and  a  sacrificial  meal,  and  that  there  was  a 
ceremony  of  the  blood  that  was  shed  for  all  (mana 
cunctis).  They  believed  also  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  in  the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  in  a  place  of  future 
punishments  and  rewards,  and  in  the  ascent  of  Mithras 
on  high.  In  the  nature  of  things,  the  Christians  asserted 
that  these  doctrines  had  been  stolen  from  them  by  the 
demons  and  revealed  to  these  worshipers  of  Mithras ;  and 
similar  accusations  seem  to  have  been  made  by  the  fol- 
lowers of  Mithras.  In  both  cases  they  were  doubtless 
wrong.  It  is  merely  an  instance  of  similar  ideas  arising 
under  similar  circumstances.  Thus  the  whole  Roman 
Empire  was  girt  about  by  the  love  of  Mithras,  and  we 
find  the  caves  which  served  as  churches  in  almost  every 
province.  Spreading  at  almost  the  same  time  as  Chris- 
tianity, it  had  by  the  middle  of  the  third  century  out- 
run it  in  numbers  and  influence. 

Never  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  there  been  a 
more  effective  organization  of  missionary  endeavor, 
than  in  the  ranks  of  the  worshipers  of  Mithras.  Their 
strength  lay  in  the  fact  that  they  were  all  volunteers, 
who  spoke  out  of  the  fullness  of  their  own  devotion,  and 
carried  their  love  of  Mithras  into  the  ordinary  walks  of 
life,  where  they  were  employed  in  the  usual  activities 
of  the  working  world.  They  were  at  first  either  slaves  or 
soldiers  —  and  thus  in  both  cases  their  missionary 
journeys  were  made,  as  it  were,  at  the  expense  of  others. 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE      91 

In  many  cases  the  slaves  had  been  soldiers,  who  had  been 
taken  prisoners  in  war.  Among  the  soldiers  themselves 
there  were  of  course  the  legions  recruited  from  the  East, 
many  of  whose  members  were  followers  of  Mithras.  But 
even  more  important,  so  far  as  missionary  work  is  con- 
cerned, were  the  centurions,  who,  by  virtue  of  the  fact 
that  they  were  frequently  transferred  from  one  legion 
to  another,  carried  the  news  of  Mithras  around  the 
whole  circle  of  the  frontier.  From  the  mouth  of  the 
Danube  to  Hadrian's  Wall  in  Britain,  from  Hadrian's 
Wall  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  from  the  Pillars  of 
Hercules  to  the  Desert  of  Sahara,  monuments  of  Mith- 
ras are  found.  These  memorials  are  abundant  in  Moesia ; 
in  Dacia  scarcely  a  town  is  without  them ;  and  they  are 
found  in  great  numbers  in  Pannonia  and  Noricum.  Ger- 
many precedes  even  the  Danube  provinces  in  the  num- 
ber and  the  quality  of  its  monuments.  Even  on  the  sea- 
coast  at  Boulogne,  Oriental  sailors  from  the  British 
fleet  had  brought  the  good  tidings.  Mithras  was  wor- 
shiped throughout  Britain,  including  London,  York,  and 
Wales.  But  we  must  not  fall  into  the  easy  error  of  sup- 
posing that  it  was  only  a  soldiers'  religion  and  confined 
to  the  frontier.  It  spread  through  the  interior  of  the 
Empire  as  well,  carried  there  at  first  by  the  slaves.  It 
was  so  well  known  in  Rome  that  we  have  about  two  hun- 
dred inscriptions  and  monumental  reliefs,  besides  several 
Mithraic  chapels.  At  Ostia  there  are  no  less  than  five 
sanctuaries,  and  remains  are  found  at  Naples,  Pisa, 


92    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Palermo,  Syracuse;  and  even  the  small  hill-towns  —  e.g., 
Spoleto,  Sentino  —  contain  Mithraic  inscriptions;  while 
southern  France,  especially  Lyons,  seems  to  have  been 
a  strong  centre  of  the  cult. 

Nor  was  it  simply  a  religion  of  under-officers,  com- 
mon soldiers,  and  slaves,  even  though  they  were  its  ear- 
liest devotees.  The  freed  slave  and  the  veteran  soldier 
both  became  in  many  cases  important  persons,  and  the 
social  success  which  they  themselves  sometimes  failed 
to  obtain,  was  very  often  reached  by  their  children  after 
them.  Thus  the  doctrines  of  Mithras,  like  those  of 
Christianity,  grew  up  out  of  the  masses  and  reached  the 
Palace  of  the  Caesars.  There  Mithras,  the  especial  guar- 
dian of  rulers,  could  not  fail  of  an  appeal,  and  from 
Commodus  through  Diocletian  his  popularity  was  ever 
on  the  increase.  With  imperial  favor  came  further 
popularity  at  the  hands  of  literary  men  and  philosophers. 
One  of  the  greatest  secrets  of  its  growth  was  its  ability 
to  adapt  itself  to  circumstances.  Its  docrines  were  suffi- 
ciently elastic  to  permit  of  far-reaching  processes  of  ac- 
commodation. 

Coming  out  of  the  Orient,  and  bringing  with  it  the 
Oriental  contempt  for  woman,  it  was  par  excellence  a 
man's  religion.  But  it  soon  discovered  that  in  the  West- 
ern world  this  was  an  insurmountable  difficulty,  and  that 
Romans  wished  to  share  their  religion  with  their  wives 
and  daughters ;  and  that  in  many  cases  in  the  final  analy- 
sis women  were  more  interested  than  men  in  the  things 


RELIGION  OF  THE  EARLY  EMPIRE       93 

of  religion.  But  this  obstacle  was  easily  removed  by  an 
alliance  with  the  Magna  Mater,  which  on  its  part  was 
quite  as  open  to  women  as  to  men.  This  alliance  was 
also  of  service  to  Mithras  in  another  respect,  because  the 
Magna  Mater  was  a  state  cult,  and  hence  by  uniting 
with  her,  the  worship  of  Mithras,  which  was  never  form- 
ally accepted  by  the  state,  received  a  certain  reflected 
light  of  legal  authorization.  It  was  also  owing  to  this 
alliance  that  the  custon  of  the  taurobolium  was  associ- 
ated with  Mithras.  As  we  saw  above,  this  was  originally 
peculiar  to  the  cult  of  the  Magna  Mater;  but  the  as- 
sociation of  the  two  cults,  and  the  fact  that  Mithras  is 
so  often  represented  as  slaying  the  bull,  have  given  rise  to 
the  popular  misconception  that  the  taurobolium  was 
an  original  part  of  Mithras  worship. 

We  can  scarcely  forbear  to  speculate  as  to  what  the 
world  would  have  been  to-day  had  Mithras  prevailed. 
What  effect  would  his  presence  have  had  upon  the  pro- 
gress of  science?  And  what  would  have  been  the  evolu- 
tion of  governmental  institutions,  had  Mithras,  the 
guardian  of  kings,  retained  his  power? 

And  finally,  what  was  Mithras?  Wherein  did  his  un- 
doubted power  lie?  He  was  not  the  chief  god  of  the 
theological  system.  That  was  Ahura-Mazda,  who  was 
forever  fighting  Ahriman.  In  the  physical  world  this 
was  the  struggle  of  light  and  darkness,  in  the  spiritual 
world  the  struggle  of  good  and  evil.  The  task  of  Mith- 
ras was  to  guard  Ahura-Mazda.  Mithras  was  the  god  of 


94    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

light,  with  a  thousand  ears,  and  ten  thousand  eyes.  And 
so  he  became  the  god  of  truth  and  of  oaths,  and  the  great 
leader  against  the  powers  of  darkness.  His  was  above 
all  things  a  militant  religion.  Life  itself  was  one  long 
battle,  and  the  powers  of  light  must  fight  forever  against 
the  powers  of  darkness.  Every  day  was  a  repetition  of  the 
conflict.  It  was  Mithras  who  made  the  dawn  and  drove 
away  the  darkness  before  the  coming  of  the  sun.  It  was 
Mithras  who  conquered  at  noonday.  It  was  Mithras 
again  who  fought  against  the  gathering  darkness,  and 
it  was  Mithras  who  caused  the  stars  to  shine  in  the 
night.  But  this  was  only  a  part  of  his  work.  It  was 
Mithras  who  brought  light  and  purity  into  men's  minds, 
who  drove  away  evil  thoughts  and  temptations,  and 
filled  the  spirit  of  man  with  a  divine  light.  He  it  was 
who  taught  men  the  love  of  truth,  and  the  great  truth 
of  the  brotherhood  of  man. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY 

THE  age  in  which  we  live  is  perhaps  more  deeply  and 
intelligently  interested  in  religion  than  any  age  which 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  Among  intellectual  people  to- 
day an  interest  in  religion  is  almost  universal ;  not  neces- 
sarily an  interest  in  any  specific  form  of  religion,  but  an 
interest  in  religion  itself.  The  age  of  scientific  material- 
ism is  past.  Scientists  are  fully  aware  of  the  limitations  of 
their  field ;  while  philosophers  go  one  step  farther  and 
acknowledge  the  reality  of  the  psychological  impulse  to 
religion.  The  religious  instinct  has  been  adjudged  nor- 
mal. Only  two  years  ago  we  celebrated  the  centenary 
of  the  birth  of  Darwin.  In  that  century  the  philosophy 
of  history  has  made  almost  a  complete  revolution.  Re- 
ceiving a  stupendous  impulse  from  the  idea  of  evolution, 
it  quickly  reformed  all  its  methods  and  results.  Then 
the  inevitable  happened ;  and  the  outward  imitation  of 
the  natural  sciences  was  followed  by  an  inner  imitation. 
Men  began  to  talk  about  the  biology  of  history,  and  to 
subject  it  to  the  laws  of  biological  evolution.  But  now 
in  these  latter  days  the  falseness  of  this  method  has  been 
clearly  shown;  and  history  takes  farewell  of  biology  and 
allows  her  to  go  alone  along  her  more  intimate  paths. 
All  this  has  been  accomplished  in  less  than  a  century. 


96    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Our  psychological  experiment  has  been  at  least  in  so 
far  successful,  that  we  have  found  our  religious  instinct 
responding  under  circumstances  which  might  readily 
have  surprised  us.  It  was  not  difficult  for  any  of  us,  I 
venture  to  say,  to  enter  into  a  sympathetic  appreciation 
of  the  cult  of  Mithras.  Many  of  us  could  enter  also  into 
the  religion  of  patriotism;  some  of  us  could  follow  it 
even  in  its  specific  form  of  emperor- worship ;  and  doubt- 
less there  were  a  few  who  found  a  certain  satisfaction  in 
primitive  nature  cults.  This  is  not  of  our  making.  The 
old  instincts  are  all  there;  they  are  being  awakened 
anew.  This  reawakening  has  been  to  a  certain  extent 
the  purpose  of  our  work. 

There  remains  but  one  thing,  to  connect  the  past  with 
the  present.  This  is  our  hardest  task.  We  all  of  us  found 
it  easy  to  take  a  languid  and  patronizing  interest  in 
these  pagan  ideas ;  but  even  when  we  are  brought  to  the 
consciousness  of  the  fact,  that  these  so-called  pagan 
ideas  were  the  forerunners  of  Christianity,  and  that, 
whatever  our  beliefs  as  to  the  origin  of  Christianity 
may  be,  it  is  our  duty  to  fit  Christianity  into  the  frame- 
work of  our  history,  we  sometimes  fear  the  consequences. 

But  taking  advantage  of  the  momentum  which  we 
have  gained,  we  shall  not  find  this  difficult.  In  all  the 
centuries  of  our  work  hitherto  we  have  seen  the  con- 
tinuity of  a  genuine  ever-present  religious  need ;  and  we 
have  observed  also  the  continuity  of  a  genuine  ever- 
present  religious  supply.  But  now,  when  we  turn  to  the 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY     97 

consideration  of  that  religion  which  has  continued  at 
least  in  name  up  to  the  present,  there  is  a  danger  lest 
we  cease  to  discuss  religion  and  confine  ourselves  to 
Christianity. 

Probably  very  many  different  attitudes  are  represented 
among  those  who  read  these  pages.  To  a  large  extent 
we  agree  in  the  facts,  but  we  differ  in  the  inferences. 
That  is,  however,  the  least  of  our  difficulties.  Each  of 
us  has  the  right  to  his  own  individual  interpretation. 
The  most  real  obstacle  which  lies  in  our  path  is  our 
great  difficulty  in  being  objective.  We  are  timid  because 
we  feel  that  we  are  dealing  with  a  tremendous  reality. 
Yet  we  have  all  this  time  been  dealing  with  tremendous 
realities.  We  are  not  stepping  to-day  from  the  region 
of  fairy  stories  into  that  of  real  life.  The  taurobolium  of 
the  Magna  Mater  was  at  the  time  and  to  the  individual 
just  as  vital  as  extreme  unction. 

Then,  too,  this  almost  morbid  sense  of  the  ultra- 
seriousness  of  our  problem  affects  us  in  the  reverse  way. 
Our  objectivity  toward  Mithras  enables  us  to  see  the 
beauty  and  the  impressiveness  of  his  worship.  We  be- 
come deeply  interested  in  him.  We  long  to  know  more 
of  his  mysteries  and  his  ethical  teachings.  And  yet  the 
early  history  of  Christianity  is  if  anything  more  inter- 
esting and  more  picturesque  than  that  of  Mithras.  But 
we  shall  surely  fail  to  appreciate  this  picturesqueness 
unless  we  look  at  it  with  a  sufficient  objectiveness  to 
become  really  interested  in  it. 


98    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

If  we  can  once  compel  ourselves  to  look  at  Christian- 
ity as  a  section  of  religious  history,  —  the  final,  the  ulti- 
mate, if  you  will,  —  the  whole  atmosphere  of  our  views  of 
both  God  and  man  will  be  clarified ;  and  in  the  long  run 
our  respect  for  Christianity  will  be  increased  rather  than 
decreased.  I  would  wish  it,  however,  clearly  understood 
that  in  this  discussion  we  are  of  course  limited  to  the 
observation  of  the  historical  phenomena.  We  have  no 
right  to  speak  of  anything  concerning  the  other,  the 
metaphysical  side  of  our  picture,  and  yet  by  this  silence 
I  would  not  have  it  understood,  either  that  I  am  myself, 
or  that  I  would  wish  you,  to  be  oblivious  of  those  other 
forces,  whose  existence  may  so  easily  be  posited.  Only 
we  must  remember  that  if  we  posit  them  here,  we  must 
posit  them  also  in  the  whole  history  of  religion. 

Let  us  begin  our  work  by  a  brief  outline  of  the  his- 
torical origin  of  Christianity.  That  origin  takes  us  to  the 
eastern  part  of  the  Empire,  to  the  small  tributary  king- 
dom of  Judaea.  We  are  interested  in  Judaea,  not  only  be- 
cause the  Founder  of  Christianity  was  born  there,  but 
because  he  came  of  the  race  of  Judaea,  and  because  he 
taught  that  his  revelation  was  the  fulfillment  of  the  doc- 
trines which  were  contained  in  the  religion  of  Judaea. 
We  shall  do  well  to  begin,  therefore,  with  the  history  of 
Judaea. 

By  a  slow  development,  which  covered  centuries,  a 
collection  of  small  tribes  was  amalgamated  into  a  king- 
dom. This  kingdom  had  its  religious  centre  at  Jerusalem, 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY     99 

the  temple  being  its  natural  sanctuary.  Theirs  was  a 
purely  national  religion,  and  there  was  nothing  excep- 
tional in  their  deep-rooted  conviction  that  they  were  a 
peculiar  and  a  chosen  people.  There  was,  however,  some- 
thing distinctly  individual  in  their  eventual  worship  of 
One  God  only,  who  was  not  only  their  one  god,  but  was 
the  only  true  god,  all  others  being  at  best  mere  idols  or 
demons.  This  is  quite  a  different  attitude  from  the  Ro- 
man idea  of  Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus,  who,  while  dis- 
tinctly the  best  god  in  the  world,  was  by  no  means  the  only 
one.  To  this  exalted  form  of  the  concept  of  god  is  owing 
the  supreme  confidence  of  this  nation  in  its  destiny  as 
the  people  chosen  of  God,  a  confidence  which,  still  ex- 
isting in  the  faithful  of  their  race,  is  perhaps  the  most 
impressive  religious  phenomenon  of  the  present  day. 

In  the  year  B.C.  590  the  hosts  of  the  Assyrians  and  the 
Chaldseans  captured  this  Jewish  kingdom,  destroyed 
the  temple  at  Jerusalem,  and  carried  the  people 
away  captive.  They  were  subsequently  released  when 
the  Persians  conquered  the  Chaldaeans  and  captured 
the  city  of  Babylon.  The  Jews  were  well  treated  and 
allowed  to  settle  again  at  Jerusalem.  Thus  they  lived 
under  the  Ptolemies  and  the  Seleucidae  with  a  very 
considerable  degree  of  liberty,  though  with  no  rights  as 
a  nation.  They  finally  gained  their  freedom  and  became 
again  a  nation  after  a  successful  insurrection  against 
Antiochus  Epiphanes,  who  had  vainly  imagined  that 
they  would  submit  to  Hellenization.  For  a  century  they 


ioo   RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

were  ruled  by  their  own  kings,  until,  in  B.C.  63,  Pom- 
pey  captured  Jerusalem,  and  twenty-three  years  later 
(B.C.  40)  Antony  established  Herod  the  Great  on  the 
throne.  Herod  died  in  B.C.  4,  and  it  is  with  him  that  the 
story  of  Christianity  begins. 

The  life  of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  does  not  con- 
cern us  here  except  to  remark,  in  passing,  that  all  at- 
tempts to  deny  his  historical  existence  —  and  some  such 
attempt  is  made  every  few  years  —  are  absolutely  futile. 
The  proofs  are  far  more  abundant  than  we  would  have 
a  right  to  expect,  considering  how  often  undoubtedly 
genuine  historical  characters  are  so  meagrely  authenti- 
cated. His  death  at  Jerusalem  is  recounted  for  us  quite 
objectively  in  the  famous  passage  of  Tacitus  (Annals, 
xv,  44),  which  is  above  suspicion.  The  historian  is 
speaking  of  Nero's  attempts  to  escape  the  charge, 
that  he  had  himself  set  fire  to  the  city  of  Rome,  by  ac- 
cusing "  those  who,  hated  on  account  of  their  evil  deeds, 
are  commonly  called  Christians.  The  author  of  this 
name,  Christ,  was  put  to  death  in  the  reign  of  the  Em- 
peror Tiberius  by  the  Procurator  Pontius  Pilate;  this 
baleful  superstition,  repressed  for  the  moment,  burst 
out  again,  not  only  throughout  Judaea,  where  this  evil 
had  originated,  but  also  throughout  the  city,  where  all 
things  evil  or  shameful  flow  together  from  all  sides  and 
are  the  objects  of  worship." 

We  are  here  primarily  interested  in  the  propagation 
of  these  doctrines.  The  success  of  this  propagation  was 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY     101 

dependent  upon  several  elements.  These  elements  are 
not  peculiar  to  Christianity,  and  they  were  being  con- 
temporaneously used  by  other  religions.  The  first  was 
the  existence  of  the  Roman  Empire  itself.  The  organi- 
zation of  this  Empire  guaranteed  peace  over  at  least 
a  large  portion  of  its  surface;  and  the  fabric  of  Roman 
roads,  which  was  already  several  centuries  old,  made 
communication  relatively  rapid  and  easy.  But  these  are, 
after  all,  merely  material  considerations.  Be  the  peace 
never  so  great,  and  be  the  roads  never  so  smooth,  the 
appeal  of  a  religion  depends  in  the  last  case  upon  the 
attitude  of  mind  of  those  to  whom  it  is  presented.  Here 
Christianity  had  the  same  advantages  as  the  other 
Oriental  cults.  The  way  had  been  prepared  for  her  as  for 
them.  She  profited  by  the  same  awakened  sense  of  the 
individual  soul  and  its  sinfulness,  by  the  same  philoso- 
phical ideas  of  the  unity  of  God,  and  that  the  many  gods 
of  polytheism  were  in  the  last  analysis  merely  many 
phases  of  the  one  divine  power.  She,  too,  had  found  men 
convinced  that  the  world  was  soon  to  come  to  an  end, 
and  that  the  most  important  work  of  man  was  the  puri- 
fication of  the  soul  so  that  it  might  be  worthy  of  immor- 
tality. There  were  absolutely  no  exceptional  conditions 
created  for  the  benefit  of  Christianity.  It  entered  into 
the  struggle  of  human  thought  with  no  superiority 
except  what  it  contained  within  itself.  In  fact,  one  of  the 
most  tangible  proofs  of  the  beauty  of  its  original  doc- 
trines, of  the  sublimity  of  the  moral  teaching  of  Him  who 


102     RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

spake  as  never  man  spake,  is  to  be  found  in  the  workings 
of  these  pre-conditions,  which  not  only  helped  but  also 
hindered  her,  while  they  seem  to  have  been  only  of 
help  to  her  rivals.  The  organization  of  the  Empire  ren- 
dered possible  organized  persecution ;  philosophy  created 
heresies;  and  the  other  Oriental  religions,  which  in  the 
main  supported  rather  than  opposed  one  another, 
ranged  themselves  unitedly  against  her. 

Let  us  consider  now  in  some  detail  the  history  of  her 
progress.  A  band  of  Jews  in  the  far-away  province  of 
Judaea  believed  that  they  had  found  the  Messiah.  The 
message  spread  quickly  among  a  community,  whose 
spiritual  eyes  had  long  been  gazing  into  the  distance 
looking  for  the  Messiah.  Among  these  Jews  there  could 
be  no  indifference  to  this  message.  Either  it  was  a  won- 
derful truth  or  a  blasphemous  falsehood.  Thus  the  com- 
munity was  divided  against  itself,  the  one  part  telling 
the  glad  tidings  of  great  joy,  the  other  part  horrified  and 
scandalized  at  the  enormity  of  the  assertion.  It  is  no 
wonder,  therefore,  that  after  his  bold  speech  Stephen 
was  stoned  to  death  by  those  Jews  who  did  not  believe, 
and  became  thus  the  first  in  the  long  ranks  of  those  who 
sealed  their  belief  by  their  death.  It  is  equally  natural 
that  a  young  man  of  excellent  education,  and  brilliant 
intellectual  ability,  who  was  not  only  a  Jew,  but  a  Ro- 
man citizen,  should  throw  himself  with  all  the  activity 
of  his  nature  into  an  attempt  to  destroy  this  repulsive 
doctrine.  The  conversion  of  Saul  of  Tarsus  and  the  rise 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY    103 

of  Paul  the  Apostle  are  entirely  in  accord  with  the  most 
approved  psychology,  and  may  be  considered  as  his- 
torical facts,  so  far  as  the  phenomena  are  concerned. 
All  these  events  occurred  in  the  fourth  decade  of  the 
first  century.  Gradually  a  church  was  founded  at 
Antioch,  where  the  followers  of  this  new  religion  first 
received  their  name  of  "Christians."  Then  came  the 
first  great  dispute.  The  Founder  of  Christianity  had 
said  to  the  woman  of  Samaria,  "Salvation  is  of  the 
Jews,"  and  there  was  no  doubt  of  that  in  the  minds  of 
all  his  followers.  In  fact,  during  the  first  years  these 
followers  were  all  of  them  Jews.  But  by  degrees  men 
who  were  not  of  the  circumcision,  became  interested  in 
the  movement,  and  the  question  arose  for  decision: 
salvation  is  indeed  of  the  Jews,  but  granted  that  as  its 
origin,  is  it  only  for  the  Jews  as  well  as  of  them,  or  is 
it  for  the  Gentiles  as  well? 

It  was  Paul,  the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles,  who  answered 
this  question,  and  all  the  history  of  Western  civilization 
waited  on  his  answer.  It  is  the  fashion  of  our  day  to 
speak  slightingly  of  Paul.  Many  of  those  who  pride 
themselves  upon  their  superior  intelligence  refer  to  him 
as  though  he  had  distorted  the  teachings  of  the  Founder 
of  Christianity.  They  would  eliminate  him  and  his  work 
from  our  concept  of  Christianity.  They  would  establish 
a  form  of  religion  purified  of  a  dogmatic  and  legal  the- 
ology. It  is  not  proper  that  we  should  enter  upon  these 
discussions  here.  Our  work  is  that  of  the  historian  and 


104    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

not  of  the  theologian.  But  it  is  necessary  to  refer  to  this 
movement,  because  many  of  those  who  are  interested 
in  it  fail  to  do  justice  to  history.  It  may  be  well  enough 
to  stand  in  the  twentieth  century,  and,  disapproving 
of  Paul's  interpretation,  try  to  eliminate  it  from  our 
modern  Christianity,  but  the  moment  this  disapproval 
takes  the  form  of  belittling  the  man  Paul,  whose  work 
in  history  they  disapprove  of,  the  historian  must  step 
forward  to  protest  against  the  iniquity  of  the  injustice 
thus  accomplished.  Christianity,  itself  of  Oriental  origin, 
so  far  as  the  phenomena  are  concerned,  was  translated 
into  terms  of  the  Occident  by  the  very  great  genius  of 
Paul.  We  may  or  may  not  approve  of  his  attitude, 
but  whether  we  approve  or  not,  we  ought  not  to  forget, 
not  only  that  the  existence  of  Christianity  in  the  Western 
world  depended  upon  its  being  occidentalized,  but  also 
that  in  a  sense  the  preservation  of  Western  civilization 
depended  upon  this  occidentalization.  In  things  reli- 
gious Rome  had  entirely  submitted  to  the  Orient ;  it  was 
Paul  who  saved  Western  civilization  by  transmuting  an 
Oriental  worship  into  terms  of  Roman  law.  This  he  could 
and  did  do,  because  he  was  more  essentially  Roman  than 
Hebrew.  In  these  modern  days  of  sympathy  with  the 
Orient,  and  desire  to  come  into  relations  of  mutual  under- 
standing with  her,  we  may  for  a  moment  regret  that 
Paul,  in  a  sense,  inserted  the  edge  of  the  wedge  which 
was  to  cleave  East  and  West  asunder  and  hold  them  so 
for  two  millenniums,  but  we  should  not  forget  how  the 


CONSTANTINE  AND   CHRISTIANITY    105 

West  has  worked  out  its  own  salvation,  and  by  progress 
in  self-government  has  brought  individual  freedom  into 
existence.  This  precious  result  could  have  been  ob- 
tained only  by  the  West  alone  unhampered  by  the  East. 
Now  that  it  has  been  obtained,  we  can  calmly  discuss 
a  sympathetic  relation  with  the  East. 

But  even  after  the  broad  platform  of  Occidentalism 
had  been  laid  down  by  Paul,  for  a  long  time  all  the  con- 
verts to  Christianity  were  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
the  Jewish  tradition  and  the  Jewish  law.  Gradually, 
however,  the  difference  between  Judaism  and  Chris- 
tianity grew  wider.  This  was  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  their  directly  opposing  points  of  view :  those  who  were 
still  looking  for  the  Messiah  and  keeping  the  old  law, 
and  those  who  had  found  the  Messiah  and  were  therefore 
no  longer  under  the  law. 

Meantime  the  new  doctrines  had  reached  the  city 
of  Rome,  where  of  course  the  inevitable  confusion  be- 
tween Jews  and  Christians  was  the  order  of  the  day. 
The  Jewish  population  of  Rome  had  increased  very 
largely  after  Pompey's  capture  of  Jerusalem.  The  city 
was  full  of  Jewish  slaves  and  freedmen,  who  lived, 
most  of  them,  across  the  river  in  Trastevere.  There 
were  so  many  Jews  in  Rome  that,  in  A.D.  19,  Tiberius 
sent  four  thousand  of  them  to  fight  in  Sardinia.  But 
the  first  traces  of  Christians  among  the  Jews  are  found 
in  connection  with  the  expulsion  carried  out  by  the  Em- 
peror Claudius,  about  A.D.  51,  of  which  Suetonius  speaks 


106    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

(Claud.  25;  cf.  Acts,  xvm,  2:  "Because  that  Claudius 
had  commanded  all  Jews  to  depart  from  Rome").  It 
was  during  these  years,  or  possibly  earlier,  that  Peter 
came  to  Rome,  for  it  seems  reasonably  probable  that  he 
was  there,  nor  would  the  whole  matter  be  so  violently 
disputed,  were  it  not  for  a  mistaken  idea  that  its  disproval 
would  seriously  discredit  certain  claims.  In  A.D.  61, 
Paul  came  to  Rome  and  lived  there  for  two  years  in  his 
own  hired  house,  very  probably  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  castra  peregrinorum  on  the  Caelian  Hill. 

Thus  Christianity  began  in  Rome,  and  it  remains  to 
be  seen  what  treatment  it  received  at  the  hands  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  In  judging  of  this  treatment  we  ought 
not  to  forget  that  the  distinction  between  Jews  and 
Christians  was  of  very  gradual  growth  inside  the  church 
itself.  How  much  more  difficult  would  it,  then,  be  for 
those  outside  to  distinguish?  The  most  characteristic 
mark  of  Judaism,  its  uncompromising  monotheism,  was 
common  to  both  Jews  and  Christians.  This  was  the 
bone  of  contention  between  the  Empire  and  the  Jews, 
and  hence  Roman  officials  instinctively  classed  them 
all  together.  It  was  only  gradually  that  they  realized 
the  distinguishing  mark  between  Jews  and  Christians, 
that  the  latter  had  a  personal  relation  to  the  Founder 
of  their  religion.  Neither  Nero  nor  Domitian  was, 
strictly  speaking,  a  persecutor  of  Christians.  The  dis- 
tinction was  not  as  yet  clear.  It  is  only  under  Trajan 
that  a  real  distinction  begins  to  be  made,  and  with  the 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY    107 

rise  of  this  distinction  the  persecution  of  the  Jews  prac- 
tically stopped,  for  it  was  found  that  the  aggressive 
element  was  really  the  Christians.  The  Romans  had 
grown  accustomed  to  the  Jews;  and  though,  theoreti- 
cally, their  monotheism  was  incompatible  with  the 
state  religion,  the  Roman  Government  had  grown  used 
to  it,  and  had  learned  that  there  was  really  no  profit  in 
persecuting  the  Jews.  But  with  these  Christians  it  was 
a  different  matter;  and  then,  in  very  many  cases,  as 
the  Romans  soon  discovered,  they  were  not  Jews  at 
all  by  race.  It  might  be  well  enough  to  connive  at  a 
Jew's  monotheism,  but  in  the  case  of  people  who  were 
not  Jews  the  matter  was  different.  This  new  religion 
was  indeed  a  religio  illicita,  and  it  must  be  opposed. 
Thus  begins  the  long  roll  of  Roman  Emperors,  who,  as 
a  general  rule  in  direct  ratio  to  their  strength  and  moral 
qualities,  became  the  persecutors  of  the  Christians. 
The  best  instance  of  a  good  emperor  who  tried  to  do 
his  duty  conscientiously  is  shown  us  in  the  case  of  the 
Emperor  Trajan,  in  his  correspondence  with  Pliny.  This 
correspondence  is  so  instructive  that  I  quote  a  few  pas- 
sages from  it.  Pliny  writes  to  the  emperor  as  follows 
(EA93K.):- 

I  am  accustomed,  Sire,  to  bring  to  thee  all  matters  in  which 
I  am  in  doubt.  For  who  could  better  guide  my  uncertainty 
or  dispel  my  ignorance?  I  have  never  been  involved  in  the 
investigation  of  Christians.  Therefore  I  do  not  know  with 
what  measures  or  to  what  degree  investigations  should  be  car- 
ried on  or  penalties  applied.  I  have  hesitated  much  whether 


io8    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

youth  deserves  consideration,  or  whether  there  should  be  no 
distinction  between  the  weak  and  the  strong,  and  whether 
repentance  should  bring  pardon,  or  whether  repentance 
should  be  of  no  avail  if  one  had  once  been  a  Christian,  or 
whether  a  man  should  be  punished  for  being  a  Christian,  even 
if  he  has  committed  no  crimes,  or  whether  we  are  punishing 
the  crimes  that  are  connected  with  the  belief.  This  is  the 
rule  which  I  have  followed  in  the  case  of  those  who  have  been 
brought  to  my  judgment  seat,  charged  with  being  Christians. 
I  have  asked  them  whether  they  were  Christians,  and  when 
they  have  confessed  it,  I  have  repeated  my  question  a  second 
and  a  third  time,  and  have  threatened  them  with  punish- 
ment. And  when  they  have  persisted,  I  have  ordered  them 
to  be  punished.  For  whatever  it  might  be  that  they  were 
guilty  of,  I  did  not  doubt  for  a  moment  that  their  stub- 
bornness and  their  inflexible  obstinacy  ought  to  be  punished. 
There  are  others  affected  by  the  same  madness,  whom  I  am 
reserving  to  send  to  Rome  because  they  are  Roman  citizens. 
Soon  after  this,  the  accusations  increased  in  number,  as  is 
customary  by  force  of  publicity,  and  became  of  very  many 
different  kinds.  An  anonymous  list  was  published  containing 
a  very  large  number  of  names.  But  these  persons  denied  that 
they  are  Christians  or  that  they  ever  were,  and  in  my  presence 
made  sacrifice  with  incense  and  wine  to  the  gods  and  also 
to  thy  image,  which  I  had  caused  to  be  brought  in  together 
with  the  images  of  the  gods.  Moreover,  they  cursed  Christ, 
which  they  say  that  those  who  are  truly  Christians  can  never 
be  compelled  to  do.  So  I  thought  they  ought  to  be  acquitted. 
And  others  who  had  been  denounced  to  me  confessed  at  first 
that  they  were  Christians  and  then  denied  it,  saying  that  they 
had  been  but  had  ceased  to  be,  some  of  them  several  years 
ago,  and  some  even  twenty  years  ago.  All  these  worshiped 
thy  image  and  the  images  of  the  gods  and  cursed  Christ. 
Moreover,  they  asserted  that  this  was  the  extent  of  their 
fault  or  their  mistake,  that  they  were  wont  to  meet  together 
on  an  appointed  day  before  sunrise  and  sing  hymns  to  the 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY    109 

praise  of  Christ  as  though  in  honor  of  a  god,  and  that  they 
bound  themselves  by  an  oath  —  not  for  the  purpose  of  crime, 
but  that  they  should  not  commit  theft,  robbery,  or  adultery, 
that  they  should  not  break  their  promise  or  deny  an  obliga- 
tion. And  when  they  had  done  these  things,  they  were  wont 
to  depart  and  to  meet  again  to  partake  in  common  of  a  harm- 
less meal.  And  they  added  that  after  my  edict,  in  which  I, 
according  to  thy  orders,  had  forbidden  these  associations, 
they  had  given  up  these  customs.  To  discover  the  truth,  I 
deemed  it  necessary  to  put  to  the  torture  two  female  slaves, 
who  were  said  to  have  been  initiated,  but  I  discovered  nothing 
except  an  extraordinary  and  perverted  superstition.  And  so 
I  have  postponed  the  investigation  and  have  come  to  you  for 
advice.  For  the  matter  seems  to  me  to  require  consideration, 
especially  on  account  of  the  multitude  of  those  involved  in 
danger.  For  large  numbers  of  all  ages  and  of  all  social  condi- 
tions and  of  both  sexes  are  involved  and  will  be  involved.  For 
the  contagion  of  the  evil  has  spread  not  only  through  the  cities, 
but  through  the  villages  and  the  farms.  I  think,  however, 
that  it  can  be  stopped  and  cured.  Certain  it  is,  that  the 
temples,  which  were  so  long  deserted,  are  being  frequented 
again,  and  that  the  sacrifices,  which  were  so  long  neglected, 
are  beginning  to  be  performed  again ;  and  fodder  for  the  sacri- 
ficial animals  is  beginning  to  be  sold  again,  for  which  so  long 
it  was  difficult  to  find  a  purchaser.  From  this  it  is  easy  to 
see  how  many  men  can  be  cured  of  the  errors  of  their  ways, 
if  only  they  be  given  a  chance  to  repent. 

.    Trajan's  reply  (Ep.  97)  is  equally  characteristic:  — 

You  have  done  what  you  ought  to  have  done,  my  dear 
Pliny,  in  investigating  the  cases  of  those  who  were  brought 
to  you  as  Christians.  In  general  it  is  impossible  to  lay  down 
any  fixed  principles  in  matters  of  this  sort.  One  should  not 
proceed  against  them  of  one's  own  accord ;  if  they  are  accused 
and  proved  guilty,  they  must  be  punished.  If,  however,  there 
be  any  one  who  says  he  is  not  a  Christian,  and  proves  his  as- 


I io    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

sertion  by  act,  —  that  is,  by  sacrificing  to  our  Gods,  —  even 
if  he  has  been  suspected  in  the  past,  he  should  be  forgiven 
if  he  repents.  Finally,  in  any  sort  of  accusation  an  anonymous 
charge  must  not  be  considered,  for  that  would  set  a  very  bad 
example  and  is  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  our  time. 

To  be  a  Christian  was  in  itself  a  crime  against  the 
state,  because  Christianity  was  a  prohibited  religion. 
It  was  a  confusion  of  this  statement  which  gave  rise  to 
the  prevalent  conception  that  the  state  persecuted 
Christians  because  they  committed  crimes.  The  one 
crime  for  which  they  were  persecuted  was  the  simple 
crime  of  being  a  Christian.  There  was  another  aspect 
of  the  case,  however,  by  which  the  monotheism  of  the 
Christians,  which  prevented  them  from  sacrificing  to 
the  gods  of  the  Roman  state,  especially  to  the  deified 
emperors,  was  in  itself  a  crime  against  Roman  religion. 

But  in  general  in  the  second  century  the  law  was  al- 
lowed to  lapse.  This  was  the  attitude  of  Hadrian  and 
Marcus  Aurelius.  The  psychological  result  of  this  lax- 
ness  was  that  the  Christians  became  constantly  more 
bold  in  their  opposition,  and  as  martyrdom  became 
more  of  a  rarity,  its  allurements  grew  greater. 

In  these  peaceful  years  of  the  latter  half  of  the  second 
century,  especially  in  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  we 
have  the  interesting  spectacle  of  "Plaintiffs"  and  "De- 
fenders" discussing  the  merits  of  Christianity.  There 
is  Celsus,  a  Platonic  philosopher,  who  wrote  during  the 
closing  years  of  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  He  is  to 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY    in 

be  distinguished  from  Celsus,  the  Epicurean  philosopher, 
who  was  a  friend  of  Lucian.  Origen  and  many  others, 
following  him,  have  confused  the  two.  Celsus's  book  is 
called  The  True  Discourse.  It  is  an  attempt  to  show 
Christians  the  folly  and  the  evil  of  their  attitude  and 
to  urge  upon  them  the  desirability  of  sacrificing  such 
minor  matters  as  personal  belief  to  the  patriotic  instinct, 
which  would  make  them  support  the  religion  of  the  state. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  they  should  believe  in  the  Roman 
gods,  but  it  is  their  duty  as  gentlemen  to  support  them 
for  the  good  of  the  Roman  state.  It  is  not  to  be  expected 
that  such  a  cultured  old-world  philosophy  would  appeal 
to  those  who  were  living  in  the  extraordinary  state  of 
problemless  joy  which  seems  to  have  surrounded  the 
Christians  of  the  first  two  centuries.  And  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  book  seems  to  have  had  no  particular  effect. 
Seventy  years  later,  Origen  ran  across  it  and  wrote  a 
discourse  disproving  it.  For  us  Celsus's  book  is  lost, 
and  we  know  its  contents  only  through  Origen ;  but  for- 
tunately the  refutation  is  so  conscientious  and  thorough, 
that  it  has  been  estimated  that  scarcely  a  tenth  of 
Celsus's  book  is  lost,  and  that  we  have  at  least  three- 
quarters  of  it  in  direct  quotation. 

Much  more  interesting  is  the  Defence  or  Apologia  of 
Justin  the  Martyr.  Justin,  a  native  of  Samaria,  was  a 
philosopher,  one  of  that  band  of  wanderers  who  called 
the  whole  world  their  country,  and  traveled  from  place 
to  place,  debating,  lecturing,  and  writing.  In  his  own 


H2    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

intellectual  wanderings  he  passed  through  various 
systems  of  philosophy,  tarried  for  a  while  in  Neoplaton- 
ism,  but  found  no  rest  until  he  had  adopted  Christianity. 
But  he  saw  no  reason  to  change  his  outward  mode  of  life, 
and  continued  to  wear  his  philosopher's  cloak.  Thus  he 
was  able  to  speak  to  the  masses  with  the  freedom  which 
the  profession  of  philosophy  always  gives.  His  interest 
was  naturally  along  the  line  of  doctrine,  and  he  was  espe- 
cially fond  of  attacking  the  heresies,  which  had  already 
grown  up  within  the  church  itself.  His  Apologia,  which 
has  been  preserved  to  us,  is  a  document  more  precious 
for  its  humanity  than  for  its  intellectual  value.  It  ex- 
plains the  persecutions  and  the  difficulties  of  the  Chris- 
tians as  the  work  of  demons,  the  facile  explanation  which 
remained  in  popularity  for  many  centuries. 

Thus,  by  the  steady  increase  in  numbers  and  by  these 
open  discussions,  the  Christian  communities  gradually 
rose  into  prominence,  so  that  by  the  beginning  of  the 
third  century  they  were  a  perfectly  well-known  element 
of  the  population.  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that 
at  this  time  they  were  secret  organizations,  concealing 
themselves,  for  example,  under  the  guise  of  burial  so- 
cieties. To  be  sure,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  legal  form 
their  associations  could  take,  for  Christianity  continued 
to  be  a  prohibited  religion.  It  is  simply  another  case  of 
tolerance,  and  it  is  a  fact  that  during  the  whole  of  the 
third  century  their  headquarters  and  the  residences  of 
their  officials  were  perfectly  well  known  to  the  state.  If 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY    113 

they  were  not  persecuted,  it  was  because  they  were 
officially  tolerated,  and  if  they  were  persecuted,  the 
state  had  no  difficulty  in  arresting  immediately  all  their 
leaders.  The  actual  church  property  itself,  their  places 
of  assembly,  and  especially  their  burial-places,  the  Cata- 
combs, could  of  course  be  held  in  the  names  of  indi- 
viduals. 

In  our  respect  for  the  majesty  of  Roman  law  and  for 
the  perfection  of  imperial  organization,  we  must  not 
forget  that  there  were  limits  even  to  these  great  powers. 
Persecution  had  become  a  very  serious  matter;  unless  it 
were  undertaken  with  a  willingness  to  exert  a  very  great 
pressure,  it  was  apt  to  end  in  a  farce.  For  example, 
when  a  certain  proconsul  of  Asia  began  to  persecute  the 
Christians  in  a  certain  town,  and  the  entire  population, 
eager  for  martyrdom,  crowded  to  his  tribunal,  having 
neither  the  strength  nor  the  desire  to  obliterate  the 
whole  town,  he  could  only  turn  on  them  in  wrath  and 
ask,  in  case  they  were  so  anxious  to  die,  were  there  not 
ropes  enough  to  hang  themselves  with,  and  cliffs  enough 
from  which  they  might  leap  to  destruction  —  an  at- 
tempt at  humor  which  was  so  misplaced  as  only  to 
emphasize  his  own  embarrassment.  \  Under  the  rule  of 
the  Severi  (A.D.  193-235),  it  is  only  the  first,  Septimius 
Severus,  who  shows  any  hostility  towards  the  Christians, 
and  even  then  his  son,  Caracalla,  was  being  brought  up 
by  a  Christian  nurse.  We  hear  of  the  promulgation  of 
an  edict  forbidding  concessions  to  Judaism  and  Chris- 


114    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

tianity,  but  we  do  not  hear  much  of  its  results.  The  last 
of  the  Severi,  Alexander,  a  man  of  very  catholic  religious 
disposition,  included  the  Christians  in  the  embrace  of 
his  tolerance,  grouped  Christ  with  Orpheus,  Abraham, 
and  Cicero  in  his  chapels  of  hero-worship,  and  even  con- 
templated raising  a  temple  to  the  Founder  of  Christianity 
and  to  include  him  officially  among  the  gods  of  the  state. 
Fortunately  this  plan  was  never  carried  out. 

A  reaction  was  inevitable,  and  it  came  in  the  person 
of  the  Emperor  Decius  (A.D.  250).  It  was  patriotism, 
and  hatred  of  the  Christians  because  they  were  unpa- 
triotic, which  moved  Decius  to  his  persecutions.  He  was 
grieved  at  the  constant  increase  of  those  who  did  not 
worship  the  gods  of  the  Roman  state.  So  long  as  a  man 
sacrificed  to  the  gods  of  the  state,  he  might  hold  in  private 
any  religion  that  he  pleased.  But  a  religion  which  for- 
bade these  national  sacrifices  must  be  suppressed.  So 
purely  formal  was  his  requirement  that  it  might  be  a 
perfunctory  sacrifice  only  once  offered,  and  those  who 
yielded  thus  gracefully  would  be  rewarded  with  a  certifi- 
cate or  diploma,  which  would  free  them  from  further 
trouble  and  annoyance.  Surely  the  Christian  apologists 
might  well  think  that  the  demons  themselves  had  in- 
vented such  a  tempting  proposition.  It  had  its  natural 
effect.  On  all  sides  men  sought  for  these  certificates. 

Whole  communities  thus  made  their  peace,  notably  at 
Alexandria ;  and  so  weak  had  the  passion  for  martyrdom 
grown,  that  those  who  would  not  sacrifice  went  into 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY    115 

hiding  to  escape  death.  A  few  years  ago  some  of  these 
certificates  of  sacrifice  were  found  in  Egypt.  They  are 
pathetic  documents  bearing  witness  to  the  weakness  of 
human  nature,  yet  in  some  ways  our  respect  for  these 
men  is  as  great  as  for  those  who  at  other  times  in  a 
frenzy  of  devotion  unnecessarily  courted  death. 

And  so  we  arrive  at  the  last  persecution,  that  by  Diocle- 
tian. It  took  the  Emperor  a  considerable  time  to  make 
up  his  mind  to  engage  in  this  persecution,  and  even  when 
it  began,  the  area  of  it  was  restricted  to  that  part  of  the 
Empire  which  was  more  immediately  under  his  personal 
observation.  But  by  degrees  the  contagion  of  activity 
spread,  and  the  greatest  of  the  persecutions  reached  its 
full  extent  and  power.  It  was  a  campaign  of  destruc- 
tion, and  every  effort  was  made  to  eradicate  entirely  the 
existence  of  Christianity.  Churches  were  destroyed, 
the  holy  books  were  burned,  and  the  property  of  the 
church  was  confiscated  by  the  state.  Those  holding 
office  in  the  church  were  put  to  death;  Christian  laymen 
of  high  rank  were  removed  from  any  official  position 
which  they  might  hold,  and  forbidden  to  hold  office  in  the 
future;  Christians  of  the  lower  classes  were  reduced  to 
slavery;  and  Christian  slaves  were  made  slaves  for  life. 
The  persecution  began  February  23,  303;  it  ceased  with 
Galerius's  edict  of  toleration,  April  30,  311. 

This  brings  us  into  the  time  and  presence  of  Constan- 
tine.  Constantine  was  born,  in  280,  in  Dacia,  the  son 
of  Constantius  Chlorus  and  Helena,  a  woman  of  low 


ii6    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

birth,  the  daughter  of  an  innkeeper.  In  306,  when  his 
father,  Constantius  Chlorus,  died  at  York,  Constantine 
was  at  his  side  and  was  immediately  saluted  by  the  troops 
as  his  successor.  For  the  following  seventeen  years  his 
life  was  one  long  series  of  vicissitudes  and  struggles, 
until  in  323  he  became  autocrat  of  the  whole  Empire, 
reigning  as  sole  emperor,  with  four  subordinate  prefects. 
These  struggles  are  extremely  interesting,  but  we  have 
no  time  to  follow  them  in  detail. 

Virgil  has  often  been  accused  of  the  lack  of  character 
in  his  hero  ^neas,  who  has  been  likened  to  the  pen- 
point  with  which  the  gods  wrote  history.  But  the 
description  is  still  more  true  of  Constantine.  He  accom- 
plished an  extraordinary  number  of  fateful  things,  yet 
we  feel  that  these  things  did  themselves  through  him 
rather  than  that  he  did  them.  His  official  recognition 
of  Christianity  and  his  removal  of  the  capital  to  Con- 
stantinople were  both  of  them  the  necessary  precondi- 
tions of  all  subsequent  Western  history;  and  yet  in 
neither  of  these  events  do  we  feel  that  he  who  did  them 
was  at  all  conscious  of  what  he  was  doing.  His  relation 
to  Christianity  is  one  of  the  riddles  of  history ;  and  even 
the  church  itself  is  divided  about  him,  because  the  East 
made  him  a  saint  while  the  West  failed  to  do  so.  The 
story  of  his  conversion  is  very  uncertain ;  and  the  vision 
of  the  cross  in  the  sky,  which  appeared  as  he  was  march- 
ing into  Italy,  and  which  he  placed  as  the  labarum  on 
the  banner  of  his  troops  as  they  marched  to  fight  Maxen- 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY    117 

tius  at  Saxa  Rubra,  may  well  have  been  a  confusion  in 
his  mind  between  Mithras  and  Christianity.  Constan- 
tine  seems  to  have  been  originally  a  worshiper  of  the 
Sun-God,  and  we  have  a  curious  passage  in  Julian's 
writings  (Or.  7,  p.  228  D),  in  which  he  tells  how  Con- 
stantine,  abandoning  the  worship  of  the  Sun,  "  brought 
misfortune  upon  himself  and  upon  his  house." 

The  truth  is  that  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been  a 
religious  man.  He  was  not  so  much  irreligious  as  unre- 
ligious.  Politics  meant  much  more  to  him  than  religion, 
and  the  unique  opportunity  of  binding  all  the  Christians 
in  the  Empire  to  his  throne,  by  making  Christianity  the 
state  religion,  appealed  to  him  much  more  than  the  in- 
herent merits  of  Christianity  itself.  But  there  may  also 
have  been  another  consideration,  which  would  have  been 
entirely  characteristic  of  Constantine  and  of  the  age  in 
which  he  lived.  He  seems  to  have  been  an  extremely 
superstitious  man,  and  he  may  well  have  recognized 
the  fact  that  all  the  emperors  before  him  who  had  per- 
secuted the  Christians,  had  come  to  a  sad  end,  and  that 
when  he  marched  against  Maxentius,  the  avowed  pro- 
tector of  the  gods  of  Rome,  he  had  been  most  unex- 
pectedly successful.  It  would  thus  have  been  in  a  spirit 
of  destiny  that  he  marked  his  banners  with  the  name  of 
Christ  and  marched  forward  to  Saxa  Rubra. 

So  far  as  his  interest  in  Christianity  is  concerned,  we 
may  trace  two  distinct  epochs  in  his  life,  a  period  from 
about  311  until  324,  during  the  time  when  he  was  fight- 


ii8    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

ing  against  Maxentius  and  later  against  Licinius,  and 
when  his  attitude  toward  Christianity  is  merely  the 
justification  of  it  as  a  legally  permitted  religion  of  the 
Roman  state,  thus  putting  it  on  a  par  with  the  other 
existing  worships;  and  a  second  period,  beginning  in 
324  and  continuing  until  his  death,  in  337,  when  he  takes 
a  more  personal  interest  in  Christianity  and  uses  his 
influence  to  exalt  it  above  the  other  cults  of  Rome. 

But  when  once  Christianity  had  been  established,  it 
is  entirely  characteristic  of  him  that  he  should  have 
been  determined  to  make  a  success  of  it  and  to  carry 
it  through.  It  was  then  that,  like  Henry  the  Eighth,  he 
was  angered  at  the  lack  of  an  exact  definition  of  Chris- 
tianity. He  had  undertaken  to  see  this  new  religion  es- 
tablished, and  now  there  seemed  to  be  a  doubt  as  to 
exactly  what  this  religion  was.  Hence  the  Council  of 
Aries  in  316,  and  of  Nicsea  in  325,  and  his  own  constant 
attendance  and  deep  interest  in  the  latter.  It  was  a 
strange  spectacle,  this  vision  of  the  successor  of  the  dei- 
fied emperors,  himself  still  Pontifex  Maximus  of  the 
old  state  religion,  presiding  over  the  bishops  who  were 
composing  that  historic  statement,  the  Nicaean  Creed. 

Thus  we  pass  to  his  successor,  Constantius  (337-361), 
whose  only  interest  in  Christianity  was  in  theological 
dispute.  Ammianus  (xxi,  16)  gives  us  a  vivid  picture 
of  the  effects  of  such  a  patronage.  I  quote  it  in  Gibbon's 
words,  because  his  translation  gives  unconsciously  the 
whole  spirit  of  Ammianus:  — 


CONSTANTINE  AND   CHRISTIANITY    119 

The  Christian  religion,  which  in  itself  is  plain  and  simple, 
he  confounded  by  the  dotage  of  superstition.  Instead  of  rec- 
onciling the  parties  by  the  weight  of  his  authority,  he  cher- 
ished and  propagated,  by  verbal  disputes,  the  differences 
which  his  vain  curiosity  had  excited.  The  highways  were 
covered  with  troops  of  bishops,  galloping  from  every  side  to 
the  assemblies,  which  they  call  synods;  and  while  they  la- 
bored to  reduce  the  whole  sect  to  their  particular  opinions,  the 
public  establishment  of  the  posts  was  almost  ruined  by  their 
hasty  and  repeated  journeys. 

Christianity  had  won  the  day.  In  numbers  and  in 
power  she  had  outrun  the  other  religions  of  the  Orient. 
She  had  conquered  in  the  battle  against  the  Roman 
State.  We  must  ask  ourselves  why  she  had  been  able 
to  accomplish  these  things.  It  is  obvious  that  from  the 
physical  standpoint  she  had  been  handicapped  in  the 
struggle. 

In  the  first  place,  the  religion  of  the  Roman  State, 
with  its  strong  appeal  of  patriotism,  was  not  in  oppo- 
sition to  any  other  Oriental  cult,  and  yet  we  have  seen 
how  by  degrees  its  whole  forces  were  turned  against 
Christianity.  In  the  second  place,  the  other  Oriental 
religions  established  and  preserved  an  informal  rela- 
tionship, so  that  friction  between  them  is  very  rare. 
This  fellowship  on  their  part  was  largely  increased  by 
their  banding  together  to  fight  Christianity.  Thus  in 
her  rivalry  she  was  pitted,  not  against  one  of  them,  but 
against  them  all.  As  for  the  last  element  in  the  religious 
community,  the  doctrines  of  philosophy,  she  was  "op- 
posed by  them  also,  to  the  extent  that  they  tended  to 


120    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

create  heresies  and  thus  to  break  up  the  unity  of  her 
body. 

In  the  last  analysis,  however,  we  see  in  the  third  and 
fourth  centuries  three  great  contending  forces :  Neopla- 
tonism,Mithraism,  and  Christianity.  It  was  around  them 
that  the  battle  raged,  the  struggle  of  masses  against 
masses,  but  even  more  important,  the  struggle  of  the 
individual  soul.  Each  of  these  forces  came  in  succession 
to  the  front  and  gained  at  least  a  temporary  control  of 
the  Empire:  Mithras  in  the  person  of  Diocletian;  Chris- 
tianity in  Constantine;  and  Neoplatonism  in  Julian. 

The  three  doctrines  had  many  points  of  resemblance. 
They  were  all  of  them  interested  in  the  soul  of  man; 
they  all  offered  the  possibility  of  purifying  that  soul 
from  its  guilt;  and  they  all  promised  eternal  life.  But 
Mithras  and  Christianity  had  at  least  two  great  advan- 
tages over  Neoplatonism,  advantages  which  gave  them 
a  much  wider  appeal  than  was  possible  for  her.  These 
advantages  were  their  definiteness  and  their  organiza- 
tion. Both  Mithraism  and  Christianity  possessed  a  de- 
finite body  of  doctrine.  Their  followers  were  not  lost 
in  philosophical  speculation.  There  were  certain  clearly 
defined  things  to  be  believed,  and  more  important  yet, 
there  was  an  equally  definite  set  of  things  to  be  done. 
They  possessed  the  appeal  of  a  definite  activity.  To  be 
sure,  it  was  faith  by  which  the  soul  was  saved,  but  it 
was  a  great  consolation  to  have  an  occupation. 

The  other  advantage  of  Mithraism  and  Christianity 


CONSTANTINE  AND   CHRISTIANITY    121 

over  Neoplatonism  was  in  the  matter  of  organization. 
Religion  was  reinforced  by  the  social  instinct.  Men  need 
not  abide  alone,  immersed  in  solitary  thought.  They 
were  gathered  together  in  communities.  The  church 
organization,  which  Mithraism  and  Christianity  alone 
possessed  among  all  the  cults  of  the  Orient,  was  in  the 
long  run  a  great  source  of  strength  to  them,  even  though, 
in  the  case  of  Mithraism,  it  was  probably  the  only  reason 
why  it  was  not  admitted  as  an  official  state  cult.  It  is 
not  difficult,  therefore,  to  see  why  Neoplatonism  was 
left  behind  in  the  race. 

But  at  first  sight  it  seems  difficult  to  distinguish  be- 
tween Mithraism  and  Christianity.  In  judging  of  Mith- 
ras we  ought  never  to  forget  that  what  we  know  of  it  we 
learn  almost  exclusively  from  its  adversaries.  We  are 
justified,  therefore,  in  positing  for  it  a  very  lofty  ethical 
standard.  Its  requirements  of  its  devotees  were  abso- 
lutely genuine,  and  they  were  of  a  very  high  order.  It  is 
easy  to  say  that  the  sacred  books  of  Christianity  may 
have  helped  her,  the  wonderful  Old  Testament  which  our 
narrow-minded  modern  age  has  so  disastrously  neglected. 
It  is  indeed  a  marvelous  thing  to  read  there  the  develop- 
ment of  a  god-concept  throughout  centuries  of  human 
history.  But  Mithras,  too,  had  his  sacred  literature. 
It,  too,  went  back  from  Rome  to  Asia  Minor,  from  Asia 
Minor  to  Persia,  from  Persia  to  India.  It,  too,  could  show 
a  marvelous  religious  development. 

We  talk  of  the  ethical  teachings  of  Jesus,  but  to  a  large 


122    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

extent  these  ethical  maxims,  excellent  as  they  are,  were 
current  in  the  ancient  world.  They  were  not  the  exclu- 
sive property  of  Christianity,  but  of  this  more  in  a 
moment. 

There  are,  however,  two  elements  of  distinction. 
Christianity  had  beyond  doubt  a  great  psychological 
advantage  over  Mithraism  in  the  presence  of  a  Founder, 
whose  life  for  these  early  Christians  had  a  reality  and  a 
vividness  which  we  to-day  can  scarcely  realize.  The  oral 
tradition  of  this  life  still  existed,  and  men  could  still 
connect  themselves  with  it  by  going  back  only  a  few 
generations  in  their  ancestry.  Allowing  for  the  differ- 
ence of  standpoint,  Mithras  might  compare  with  Jehovah 
in  matter  of  venerability,  but  Mithras  possessed  no 
parallel  to  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  not  as  the  savior  of  the 
world,  for  that  Mithras  could  claim  to  be,  but  as  the 
man  Jesus,  the  carpenter's  son.  Of  course  such  parallels 
were  attempted,  not  to  be  sure  in  the  cult  of  Mithras, 
but  in  the  realm  of  philosophy.  To  please  the  Empress 
Julia  Domna,  Philostratus  wrote  the  life  of  Apollonius 
of  Tyana,  a  Pythagorean  philosopher  and  miracle- worker 
of  the  first  century  of  our  era.  It  has  often  been  asserted 
that  the  purpose  of  Philostratus  was  to  present  Apollo- 
nius not  merely  as  the  type  of  the  perfect  man,  but  as 
an  avowed  parallel  to  Jesus.  But  this  latter  assertion 
does  not  seem  correct.  The  life  was  written  without 
reference  to  Jesus,  but  rather  in  the  attempt  to  pro- 
duce a  picture  of  an  ideal  philosopher.  Nevertheless 


CONSTANTINE  AND  CHRISTIANITY    123 

comparisons  between  the  two  lives  inevitably  suggested 
themselves;  and  such  a  comparison  is  all  that  is  neces- 
sary to  answer  the  question  as  to  their  relative  ethical 
beauty.  This  personal  relation  to  the  Founder  has  al- 
ways been  characteristic  of  certain  forms  of  Christianity, 
and  it  has  doubtless  had  a  very  considerable  effect,  but 
it  is  open  to  grave  question  as  to  whether  this  in  itself 
is  sufficient  to  account  either  for  the  early  conquest 
of  Christianity  or  for  its  subsequent  spread. 

Here,  however,  a  totally  different  principle  steps  in. 
Christianity  has  existed,  at  least  in  name,  for  nineteen 
hundred  years.  All  the  world,  including  its  followers, 
are  only  too  ready  to  admit  that  its  practice  has  been 
far  inferior  to  its  theory.  The  difference  between  prac- 
tice and  theory  has  often  grown  so  great  that  many  parts 
of  the  theory  have  been  forgotten.  There  is,  however, 
one  ideal  of  Christianity  which  seems  never  to  have  been 
forgotten,  though  its  practice  has  more  often  been  con- 
fined to  the  humbler  classes,  with  occasional  brilliant 
exceptions  in  the  upper  ones.  We  can  scarcely  conceive 
of  two  characters  more  essentially  different  than  that 
of  Augustine  and  that  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche,  and  yet 
these  two  men  agree  with  each  other  and  with  the  man 
in  the  street  regarding  the  essential  characteristic  of 
Christianity.  It  was  this  characteristic  which  caused 
Augustine  to  accept  it  after  passing  through  Mith- 
raism  and  Neoplatonism.  It  was  this  same  character- 
istic which  caused  Friedrich  Nietzsche  to  reject  it  as 


124    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  'ANCIENT  ROME 

the  "Sclavenmoral,"  the  ethic"  of  slavery.  It  is  what 
we,  who  have  the  privilege  of  living  in  these  post- 
Darwinian  days,  may  call  its  opposition,  the  resistance 
which  it  offers  to  the  working  of  the  doctrines  of  bio- 
logical evolution,  its  war  against  the  practice  of  the 
survival  of  the  fittest.  To  lift  up  those  who  have 
fallen  beneath  the  feet  of  the  progress  of  the  world, 
to  care  for  those  who  are  of  no  apparent  profit  or  good 
to  society  at  large,  to  give  to  those  who  cannot  give 
again,  these  are  the  deeds  which  even  in  our  modern 
parlance  we  call  "real  Christianity/*  This  is  the 
" Sclavenmoral" ;  it  does  indeed  hinder  human  progress, 
if  by  human  progress  is  meant  the  Superman  who  gains 
added  height  by  treading  on  those  who  are  weaker  than 
he.  We  may  take  Nietzsche's  part  against  Christianity, 
we  may  have  steeled  ourselves  by  dint  of  scientific  and 
pseudo-humanitarian  thought  so  that  we  advocate 
euthanasia  and  lethal  chambers,  but  somewhere  inside 
of  us  is  the  chord  which  responds  to  the  Christian  note. 
It  is  this  note  which  has  awakened  a  response  in  millions 
of  human  beings  during  these  nineteen  centuries.  It  is 
the  essentially  new  thing  which  has  come  into  the  world 
during  this  new  regime.  Neoplatonism  and  Mithraism 
knew  nothing  of  it;  and  to  its  presence,  so  far  as  our 
phenomenal  explanations  go,  was  owing  the  conquest  of 
Christianity  over  the  combined  forces  of  the  ancient 
world. 


CHAPTER  V 

JULIAN   CALLED  THE  APOSTATE:  THE  TWILIGHT  OF 
THE  GODS 

IT  is  unquestionably  true  that  to  a  very  large  extent 
the  fourth  century  is  a  century  of  destruction,  and  no 
normally  constituted  man  takes  pleasure  in  destruction. 
A  work  of  destruction  may  indeed  be  carried  on  on  such 
a  large  scale  that  it  inspires  the  beholder  by  the  majesty 
of  its  action.  But  in  this  case  it  is  the  exhibition  of  power, 
rather  than  the  destruction  itself,  which  calls  forth  our 
reverence.  But  there  is  little  of  this  in  the  fourth  century. 
It  is  a  period  of  steady  almost  monotonous  annihilation  of 
the  outward  features  of  paganism.  It  is  much  more  than 
that.  It  is  the  dissolution  of  the  old  world  in  all  its 
phases. 

The  question  has  often  been  asked,  Was  Christianity 
responsible?  At  first  sight  it  seems  as  though  this  were 
the  case.  It  is  notorious  that  the  Christians  took  very 
little  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  state.  The  reason  for 
this  indifference  is  not  to  be  sought  in  any  particular 
hostility  on  their  part  against  Rome.  But  there  was  an 
Oriental  element  in  early  Christianity,  an  accentuation 
of  the  value  of  the  life  to  come,  and  a  corresponding 
indifference  to  the  life  that  is.  This  detachment  was 
particularly  strong  in  the  early  history  of  the  church. 


126    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

But  it  was  too  purely  an  Oriental  idea  to  be  able  to 
retain  its  strength  in  the  Western  world.  It  Has  sur- 
vived, but  more  in  theory  than  in  practice,  and  by  a 
process  of  accommodation  so  that  a  real,  even  if  second- 
ary, value  is  assigned  to  the  present  life.  But  the  will- 
ingness with  which  the  early  Christians  accepted  these 
Oriental  ideas  was  itself  dependent  upon  conditions  for 
which  Christianity  was  not  responsible.  The  acceptance 
was  a  result  rather  than  a  cause,  and  the  cause  itself 
must  be  sought  much  farther  back.  It  lay  in  the  ex- 
cessive cosmopolitanism  of  the  Empire.  It  was  this, 
rather  than  the  doctrines  of  any  particular  religion, 
which  had  sapped  the  vitality  of  patriotism. 

This  is  said  in  justice,  and  not  in  any  spirit  of  excessive 
partiality  toward  the  Christians  of  the  fourth  century. 
There  are  very  few  centuries  in  which  Christianity 
makes  a  weaker  appeal.  The  so-called  early  Christians 
are  extremely  interesting.  If  we  study  them  sympatheti- 
cally, we  experience  the  contagion  of  their  inspiration. 
We  may  not  feel  that  their  mental  attitude  is  altogether 
healthy,  but  I  venture  to  say  that  it  was  much  more 
healthy  in  reality,  and  at  the  time,  than  it  seems  to  us 
at  this  distance.  But  for  the  Christians  of  the  fourth 
century  there  is  very  little  to  be  said.  Christianity  had 
conquered.  Her  followers  had  obtained  imperial  pa- 
tronage and  political  power.  They  were  now  experiencing 
the  relaxing  effects  of  success.  They  were  becoming 
of  the  world,  worldly.  Men  had  received  a  beautiful 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      127 

religion,  and  had  shown  their  love  of  it  by  their  willing- 
ness to  die  for  it;  but  when  they  were  asked  to  live  for 
it,  they  failed.  They  had  defeated  old  Roman  religion, 
and  it  seemed  to  them  that  the  battle  was  over.  But  their 
greatest  struggle  was  still  before  them.  They  were  now 
entering  into  the  period  of  conflict  between  the  old  cul- 
ture and  the  new  religion.  The  world  could  afford  to 
lose  the  old  religion,  but  it  could  not  afford  to  lose  the 
old  culture.  Here  victory  lay  not  in  destruction,  but  in 
transformation  and  adoption.  Success  here  was  possible 
only  by^humility,  and  they  were  soon  to  learn  a  lesson 
of  humility. 

Thus,  if  we  take  the  deeper  view,  we  shall  see  that 
this  century  is  not  one  of  mere  destruction.  The  pro- 
cesses of  accommodation  are  at  work,  and  very  much 
that  was  good  in  pagan  culture  was  ultimately  to  be 
preserved.  Then,  too,  if  the  Christians  are  in  the  main 
not  pleasing  to  behold,  the  last  of  the  pagans  are  by 
contrast  extremely  attractive.  They  have,  to  be  sure,  the 
charm  of  the  lost  cause,  and  they  are  beautiful  in  their 
death.  But  the  beauty  is  genuine,  and  our  admiration 
is  justified. 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the  condition  of  that 
old  religion  of  the  Roman  State,  that  venerable  system 
of  gods,  priesthoods,  and  cult  practices,  whose  origin 
is  lost  in  the  darkness  of  early  Roman  history.  For  as 
yet  paganism  was  not  officially  abolished.  Cons  tan  tine 
had  elevated  Christianity  into  a  legitimate  religion :  he 


128    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

had  made  it  a  state  religion  and  had  shown  it  his  own 
personal  favor;  but  paganism  still  abounded;  it  was 
still  powerful  enough  to  consider  a  renewal  of  the  battle. 
In  the  struggle  with  Christianity  it  was  confronted  by 
a  religion Vhich  possessed  two  things  which  it  did  not  pos- 
sess :  an  established  dogma  and  a  definite  system  of  organi- 
zation. Paganism,  and  above  all  Roman  paganism,  had 
never  been  dogmatic.  It  had  concerned  itself  very  little 
with  the  theory  and  the  nature  of  the  gods ;  it  had  con- 
fined itself  almost  exclusively  to  the  methods  by  which 
the  gods  could  be  put  to  practical  use.  It  found  itself, 
therefore,  in  the  fourth  century,  in  the  possession  of 
no  dogma;  and  in  an  age  whose  chief  recreation  was 
theological  and  philosophical  dispute  this  was  a  very 
serious  lack.  Then,  too,  the  old  religion  had  always  been 
synonymous  with  the  state.  Apart  from  the  state  it  had 
had  no  organization.  There  had  been  no  need  of  any 
such  organization.  Its  place  was  assured  to  it.  It  had 
neither  need  nor  desire  to  make  converts.  But  now  all 
this  was  changed.  It  still  received  the  support  of  the 
state,  but  it  had  become  involved  in  a  competition,  for 
which  it  was  in  no  wise  prepared.  Its  priesthoods  were 
filled  with  men  of  affairs,  who  had  neither  time  nor  in- 
clination to  devote  themselves  to  religious  things,  and 
it  had  no  appeal  except  the  appeal  of  patriotism;  and 
now  that  the  emperors  acknowledged  Christianity,  its 
followers  could  no  longer  be  openly  accused  of  being  un- 
patriotic. Thus  its  patriotic  appeal  was  reduced  to  a'mere 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      129 

sentimentalism.  Christianity  might  now  be  the  religion 
of  the  fatherland,  but  it  was  certainly  not  the  religion 
of  the  fathers.  But  that  was  the  extent  of  the  argument. 
The  division  of  power  between  Christianity  and  pagan- 
ism was  not  the  same  in  all  parts  of  the  Empire.  Chris- 
tianity had  begun  in  the  Eastern  provinces.  It  was  but 
natural  that  its  strength  should  be  greatest  there. 
Then,  too,  the  capital  was  now  in  the  East,  and  where 
the  court  was,  there  the  newer  things,  among  them 
Christianity,  would  naturally  thrive.  Ever  since  Cara- 
calla  had  granted  universal  citizenship,  and  more  es- 
pecially since  Constantine  had  founded  Constantinople, 
Rome  had  become  steadily  more  and  more  provincial. 
She  had  fallen  behind  in  the  advance  of  progress.  She 
had  grown  distinctly  old-fashioned.  But  among  these 
old  fashions  wasjpaganism,  so  that  the  city  of  Rome 
itself  was  the  greatest  stronghold  of  paganism  in  the 
whole  Empire.  There  was  also  another  reason  why  pagan- 
ism flourished  at  Rome.  The  Senate  had  never  ceased 
to  exist.  It  had  not  been  transferred  to  Constantinople, 
but  instead  a  new  Senate  had  been  created  there,  while 
the  old  Senate  continued  in  Rome.  The  Senators  of 
Rome  were  conservative,  and  being  conservative  they 
were  for  the  most  part  pagan.  Thus  Rome  was  in  a 
sense  an  exception  to  the  general  lack  of  pagan  organi- 
zation. She  was  provided  with  such  an  organization  in 
the  shape  of  the  Senate.  At  the  end  of  the  fourth  cen- 
tury there  were  still  in  existence  in  Rome  over  four 


130    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

hundred  pagan  temples.  The  Magna  Mater  was  still 
worshiped,  and  sacrifices  were  still  made  at  the  Ara 
Maxima,  the"old  altar  of  Hercules  in  the  Forum  Boarium. 
In  359,  the  Prefect  of  Rome,  in  accordance  with  ancient 
custom,  sacrificed  to  Castor  and  Pollux  at  Ostia.  In- 
scriptions to  Mithras  are  still  very  numerous,  and  a 
tauroboUum  was  performed  near  Saint  Peter's  as  late 
as  390.  But  these  are  exceptional  conditions,  and 
throughout  the  Empire  at  large  Christianity  was  mak- 
ing steady  progress. 

And  yet  it  might  readily  seem  that  the  instincts  of 
paganism  would  perhaps  respond  to  a  strong  and  earnest 
appeal.  Thus  we  are  introduced  to  Julian,  called  the 
Apostate.  We  shall  take  occasion  later  to  form  an  opinion 
of  Julian's  character  and  his  significance ;  but  it  may  be 
as  well  to  say,  at  the  start,  that  the  judgments  passed  on 
his  character  may  be  divided  into  two  classes:  those 
which  belittle  his  significance  and  have  usually  emanated 
from  the  supporters  of  Christianity,  and  those  which 
exaggerate  his  importance  and  have  been  held  by  the 
opposers  of  Christianity,  notably  by  the  immortal 
Gibbon.  And  yet  it  is  Gibbon's  wonderful  account  of 
Julian  which  lies  at  the  back  of  all  our  modern  feeling 
toward  him.  This  is  true  of  every  one  of  us,  whether  we 
have  read  Gibbon's  account  or  not,  for  Gibbon's  de- 
scription has  entered  so  permeatingly  into  the  web  and 
woof  of  all  that  has  been  written  about  Julian,  that  Gib- 
bon is,  directly  or  indirectly,  the  source  of  almost  all 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE       131 

that  we  have  ever  heard  of  Julian.  We  may  well  con- 
sider Gibbon's  point  of  view  as  prejudiced.  We  may  be 
able  to  analyze  that  prejudice  and  strive  thus  to  avoid  it, 
but  we  shall  strive  in  vain  to  escape  the  influence  of 
Gibbon.  Nor  is  it  to  be  desired  that  we  should  altogether 
escape  it,  for  in  so  doing  we  should  lose  a  certain  amount 
of  legitimate  charm.  We  shall  find  that  Julian  was  not 
a  supremely  great  man,  but  we  shall  find  him  genuine 
and  sincere  and  very  lovable,  at  least  to  those  who 
understand  him.  It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  have  the  privi- 
lege of  discussing  him. 

Julian  was  born  in  331 ;  he  died  in  363;  he  lived  there- 
fore only  thirty-two  years.  For  the  understanding  of 
what  he  did,  we  must  remember  his  youthfulness.  His 
early  education  is  indicative  of  the  dualism  which  then 
existed  between  the  old  pagan  culture  and  the  new 
Christian  faith.  He  had  two  tutors,  the  excellent  but 
uninspiring  Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  Bishop  of  Con- 
stantinople, who  taught  him  the  Bible ;  and  the  sympa- 
thetic Mardonius,  a  eunuch  who  had  been  tutor  to 
Julian's  mother,  and  who  now  opened  to  him  the  beauty 
of  Homer.  In  337,  Constantine  died,  and  Constantius 
organized  a  general  massacre  of  all  his  relatives.  Only 
two  were  saved.  They  were  the  six-year-old  Julian  and 
his  older  brother  Gallus,  who  was  then  eleven.  Seven 
years  of  comparative  peace  followed,  but  when  Gallus 
was  eighteen  and  Julian  thirteen  (344),  the  Emperor 
Constantius  deemed  it  wise  to  keep  them  both  in  close 


132    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

observation,  and  they  were  confined  for  six  years  in  a 
fortress  near  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia.  Their  prison  was, 
to  be  sure,  an  ancient  palace,  where  once  the  kings  of 
Cappadocia  had  resided.  Its  grounds  were  extensive 
and  the  two  princes  were  surrounded  by  everything 
which  might  make  life  happy  except  freedom  itself, 
without  which  all  the  rest  was  of  no  profit. 

Finally,  in  351,  the  elder  brother,  Gallus,  was  declared 
Caesar  and  married  to  the  Princess  Constantina.  Gallus 
at  Caesarea  had  been  sufficiently  a  sad  spectacle,  but 
Gallus  as  an  emperor  was  infinitely  worse.  His  violent 
temper  brought  him  into  difficulty  with  all  those  about 
him,  and  his  wife,  instead  of  being  a  help,  was  a  con- 
stant incentive  to  evil.  Thus  he  aroused  the  hatred 
of  Constantius,  and  was  finally  put  to  death  at  Pola 
in  354.  In  the  same  year  Julian,  who  was  then  living  in 
Ionia,  was  taken  prisoner  and  carried  to  Milan.  There 
for  seven  months  he  was  kept  a  prisoner  with  the  con- 
stant menace  of  death.  Owing  to  the  good  offices  of  the 
Empress  Eusebia,  gradually  a  more  favorable  view  of  his 
case  was  taken,  and  he  was  permitted  to  go  into  exile  at 
Athens.  But  though  it  might  be  nominally  exile,  it  was 
for  a  Julian  a  veritable  coming  into  his  own.  These  were 
the  years  in  which  his  tendencies  to  mysticism  were  be- 
ginning to  develop.  While  not  unmindful  of  the  fact 
that  the  preservation  of  his  life  was  owing  to  the  Empress 
Eusebia,  he  felt  nevertheless  that  it  was  the  gods  of 
Greece  who  had  used  her  as  their  human  instrument. 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      133 

And  now  he  was  permitted  to  go  to  the  heart  of  that 
Greek  world  which  he  loved  so  dearly.  He  was  to  study 
in  that  place,  which  was  not  only  historically  the  centre 
of  Greek  thought,  but  was  in  his  day  so  full  of  learn- 
ing and  teaching  that  it  was  not  unlike  a  modern  uni- 
versity. 

Julian's  remembrances  of  these  six  months  and  his 
permanent  affection  for  Athens  are  very  beautifully  ex- 
pressed in  Gibbon's  phrase:  "  Julian  inviolably  preserved 
for  Athens  that  tender  regard  which  seldom  fails  to  arise 
in  a  liberal  mind  from  the  recollection  of  the  place  where 
it  has  discovered  and  exercised  its  growing  powers." 
Gregory  of  Nazianzus  gives  an  account  of  Julian's  ap- 
pearance during  these  student  days.  He  describes  his 
nervousness  and  excitability,  his  stuttering  and  irregu- 
lar speech,  and  strives  to  produce  the  impression  with- 
out actually  saying  it  in  words,  that  Julian  belonged  in 
the  category  of  the  epileptic.  But  Gregory's  antipathy 
is  well  known,  and  nothing  is  so  easy  as  to  brand  a  per- 
son with  the  mark  of  abnormality,  especially  when  that 
person  has  led  of  necessity  a  more  or  less  solitary  life. 
That  Julian  at  this  time  was  of  a  pensive  and  emotional 
temperament  there  is  little  doubt.  He  may  well  have 
been  given  to  brooding  over  the  mysteries  of  life,  and  we 
know  that  the  sense  of  his  messiahship  was  beginning  to 
dawn  upon  him,  and  that  he  felt  himself  the  favorite  of 
the  gods,  protected  by  a  guard  of  angels.  But  the  preser- 
vation of  his  mental  balance  is  proved  to  us  beyond  a 


134    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

peradventure  by  his  marvelous  success  in  the  activities 
of  life  upon  which  he  was  now  called  to  enter. 
,  Without  the  understanding  of  these  first  twenty-four 
years  of  his  life,  the  last  eight  are  a  complete  riddle.  It  is 
little  wonder  that  he  hated  a  religion  which  was  pre- 
sented to  him  theoretically  in  Hebrew,  a  language  which 
he  did  not  like,  and  worked  out  before  him  practically 
in  the  person  of  the  murderous  Constantius.  It  is  not 
surprising  that  the  imaginative  little  boy,  with  his  love 
of  Greek  and  the  stories  of  Homer,  should  live  more  and 
more  in  that  past  heroic  age  rather  than  in  a  present 
which  began  for  him .  in  an  atmosphere  of  murder,  and 
continued  in  one  of  espionage  and  imprisonment.  And 
the  enforced  companionship  of  a  brutal  and  unsympa- 
thetic brother  would  serve  only  to  accentuate  his  loneli- 
ness. 

The  happy  student  days  in  Athens  came  all  too  quick- 
ly to  an  end.  The  post  of  Caesar  in  the  West  was  vacant. 
The  frontier  was  being  threatened  at  several  points,  and 
Constantius  had  need  of  an  assistant.  It  was  again  the 
Empress  Eusebia  who  championed  the  cause  of  Julian, 
and  succeeded  in  removing  the  Emperor's  prejudices 
against  him.  Julian  was  recalled  to  Milan,  married  to 
Helena,  Constantius's  sister,  appointed  Caesar  Novem- 
ber 6,  355,  and  sent  to  fight  in  Gaul  and  Germany 
against  the  enemies  of  Rome.  It  is  little  wonder  that 
Julian  was  thoroughly  terrified  by  this  sudden  change  in 
his  fortunes.  When  the  long  beard  and  the  gray  cloak  of 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      135 

the  philosopher  were  removed  from  him,  and  he  was 
clad  in  the  imperial  purple,  it  was  extremely  natural 
that  as  he  returned  to  the  palace,  he  should  murmur  to 
himself  the  familiar  line  of  the  Iliad  (v,  83),  "  Him  purple 
death  laid  hold  on  and  stern  fate."  The  example  of  his 
brother  Gallus  was  before  him,  for  whom  the  purple  had 
become  the  shroud.  But  however  cast  down  he  was  at 
the'moment,  he  made  a  brave  showing  before  the  soldiers, 
and  immediately  won  their  respect. 
$  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  the  ulterior  purpose  which  Con- 
stantius  may  have  had  in  this  appointment.  There  were 
many  chances  that  Julian  would  never  return  from  Gaul 
or  Germany.  But  Constantius  reckoned  without  his 
host,  and  Julian's  guard  of  angels  stood  him  in  good 
stead.  Thus  Julian  was  dispatched  to  Gaul ;  but  the  dis- 
trust of  the  Emperor  surrounded  him  by  a  multitude  of 
advisers  and  a  large  retinue  of  servants.  Julian  was  res- 
tive under  this  tutelage,  but  judging  the  matter  objec- 
tively, one  can  but  admire  the  prudence  of  an  emperor 
who  hesitated  to  give  uncontrolled  command  to  a 
dreamy,  absolutely  inexperienced  youth  of  twenty-four. 
It  is  the  more  to  Julian's  credit,  however,  that  he  suc- 
ceeded under  these  trying  circumstances  in  making  his 
own  individuality  tell,  and  in  giving  such  proof  of  his 
real  ability  that  he  was  gradually  allowed  to  assume 
control.  Thus  the  philosopher  became  the  soldier.  The 
story  that  in  the  midst  of  military  exercises  he  cried  out, 
"O  Plato!  O  Plato!  What  a  task  for  a  philosopher!" 


136    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME  , 

may  well  be  true,  but  it  does  not  necessarily  prove  that 
the  soldier's  life  was  distasteful  to  him.  On  the  contrary, 
it  may  well  have  been  the  expression  of  the  throwing  of 
himself  wholesouledly  into  the  task,  buoyed  up  by  the 
incongruity  of  the  situation,  which  to  his  mystical  mind 
would  be  only  another  proof  of  the  activity  of  his  guar- 
dian angels,  and  the  working-out  of  the  inevitable  des- 
tiny by  which  he  was  to  be  given  power  in  order  that  he 
might  be  the  savior  of  his  people. 

But  whatever  doubt  there  may  be  concerning  his  en- 
joyment of  the  task,  there  is  no  doubt  of  his  success  in 
it.  This  has  been  admired  even  by  his  most  energetic 
detractors,  who,  while  still  denying  that  he  was  a  great 
general,  are  compelled  to  admit  that  he  at  least  accom- 
plished the  work  of  a  great  general.  He  won  the  love  and 
respect  of  his  soldiers  by  the  simple  and  time-honored 
method,  which  has  never  yet  failed,  and  never  can  fail  so 
long  as  human  nature  lasts,  — that  of  sharing  their  hard- 
ships and  privations.  His  first  campaign  (356)  was  con- 
cerned with  the  defense  of  Autun  against  the  Alemanni, 
and  of  Cologne  against  the  Franks.  The  winter  of  356- 
57  was  a  very  difficult  one,  for  the  Germans  seemed  ever 
present  in  Alsace,  and  were  bold  enough  to  besiege  Julian 
himself  at  Sens.  But  Julian's  revenge  came  quickly.  In 
AugusV357/  with  a  slender  army  of  thirteen  thousand 
men  he  engaged  in  conflict  at  Strassburg  with  almost 
three  times  that  number  of  barbarians.  Largely  owing 
to  Julian's  own  courage,  the  Romans  won  a  great  vie- 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      137 

tory.  Of  his  subsequent  campaigns  in  Gaul,  of  his  three 
expeditions  beyond  the  Rhine,  and  of  his  diligent  resto- 
ration of  the  cities  of  Gaul,  we  have  no  time  to  speak. 
He  had  succeeded,  and  the  inevitable  result  of  success 
followed,  the  jealousy  of  the  Emperor.  Constantius 
might  console  himself  by  sending  letters  to  the  provinces, 
omitting  all  mention  of  Julian's  name,  and  talking  of  his 
own  success  against  the  barbarians,  but  all  mankind, 
and  Julian's  troops  above  all,  knew  that  when  the  battle 
occurred,  the  Emperor  was  at  a  safe  distance  of  forty 
days'  journey.  Thus  Constantius  adopted  another 
scheme,  which  bade  fair  to  be  more  effective.  Gaul  was 
in  comparative  peace,  while  the  Eastern  provinces  were 
in  a  state  of  turmoil.  Circumstances,  therefore,  offered 
to  Constantius  a  plausible  excuse  for  transferring  to  the 
East  four  of  the  legions  under  Julian,  in  their  entirety, 
and  picked  men  from  the  others.  Julian  had  no  choice 
but  to  obey,  and  accordingly  bade  farewell  to  his  faith- 
ful troops,  making  them  a  final  speech  on  a  plain  near 
Paris.  They  heard  Turn  in  silence,  but  that  same  day  at 
midnight  they  surrounded  the  palace,  which  was  on  the 
Rive  Gauche,  in  the  modern  Rue  de  la  Harpe,  and  pro- 
claimed Julian  Emperor.  All  night  long  he  defended  him- 
self against  them,  but  at  dawn  they  broke  in  and  carried 
him  away,  to  be  publicly  saluted  by  the  army.  He  refused 
to  be  crowned  by  a  woman's  necklace  or  a  horse  collar, 
but  accepted  a  soldier's  neck-chain  as  the  symbol  of  the 
crown. 


138    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Then  followed  a  year  of  anxious  waiting,  filled  with 
fruitless  negotiations  between  the  two  Emperors,  Julian 
in  Gaul,  Constantius  in  Cappadocia,  while  each  man 
stayed  at  his  post,  unable  to  leave  without  damage  to 
the  Empire,  and  each  preferring  his  public  duty  to  his 
private  interest.  Finally,  in  361,  Julian  marched  east- 
wards, to  attack  Constantius,  and  Constantius  on  his 
part  moved  westward  to  attack  him.  But  long  before  the 
armies  met,  while  Julian  was  still  on  the  Danube,  Con- 
stantius died  near  Tarsus,  November  3,  361,  and  his 
troops  surrendered  to  Julian,  who  was  thus  acclaimed  by 
the  whole  Empire. 

It  was  December  n,  361,  when  Julian  entered  Con- 
stantinople; it  was  June  26,  363,  that  he  was  killed  by 
the  Persian  dart.  There  remained  for  him,  therefore, 
eighteen  and  one  half  months  of  life,  in  which  to  carry 
out  the  real  purpose  for  which  the  six  long  years  of  sol- 
diering had  been  only  the  preparation ;  yet  even  of  these 
precious  months,  three  —  the  last  three  —  were  des- 
tined to  be  consecrated  to  the  Persian  campaign  in  which 
he  lost  his  life.  For  his  religious  reforms  there  were  left, 
therefore,  only  a  little  over  fifteen  months. 

The  idea  at  the  base  of  all  of  Julian's  activity  "was  the 
establishment  of  the  "Holy  Church  of  Paganism."  His 
belief  in  the  pagan  gods  and  his  conservative  instincts 
convinced  him  that  a  return  to  the  religion  of  the  fathers 
was  essential  for  the  salvation  of  Rome.  Yet  his  train- 
ing in  the  Christian  religion  had  been  so  thorough,  and 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      139 

his  knowledge  of  the  world  about  him  was  so  broad,  that 
he  realized  that  this  renaissance  of  pagan  belief  would  be 
possible  only  by  the  imitation  and  adaptation  of  those 
new  elements  which  Christianity  and  certain  of  the 
Oriental  religions  had  brought  into  existence.  Both 
Christianity  and  Mithraism  had  two  great  advantages 
over  the  later  state  religion  of  paganism.  They  were  in 
possession  of  a  system  of  dogma  and  of  a  definite  organ- 
ization. It  was  these  advantages  which  he  hoped  to  gain 
for  the  followers  of  the  old  religion. 

But  here  the  pathos  of  the  situation  came  in.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  Julian  thought  of  himself  as  a  genuine 
Roman,  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  supposed  he  was  es- 
tablishing old  Roman  religion.  But  he  was  much  more 
Greek  than  Roman,  and  the  religious  ideas  which  he  at- 
tempted to  establish  belonged  not  in  the  realm  of  Roman 
thought,  but  rather  in  that  of  Neoplatonism.  It  was  the 
Church  of  Hellenism  in  which  he  was  interested.  In  the 
matter  of  dogma  his  difficulties  were  greatest.  Neopla- 
tonism was  not  only  a  philosophical  system,  but  a  pecu- 
liarly vague  and  mystical  philosophy.  It  was  the  mysti- 
cal element  which  caused  it  to  appeal  to  Julian;  but 
what  appealed  to  Julian  could  not,  in  the  nature  of 
things,  appeal  to  the  masses.  Neoplatonism  was  not  for 
the  common  people;  and  be  Julian's  preparation  of  it 
never  so  careful,  it  could  not  but  fail  to  be  understood. 
-  In  the  matter  of  organization  he  was  more  successful. 
It  was  a  relatively  easy  matter  for  an  emperor  to  reform 


I4o    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  priesthoods.  But  he  was  not  content  with  a  mere 
improvement  of  outward  form.  It  was  not  simply  a 
question  of  keeping  the  priesthoods  filled  with  respecta- 
ble persons:  the  problem  which  Augustus  had  had  to 
solve.  The  requirements  of  the  priesthood  had  increased 
enormously  since  that  day.  Christianity  and  the  other 
religions  of  the  Orient  had  introduced  into  Rome  the 
idea  that  the  priestly  office  demanded  constant  and  de- 
voted service,  and  that  its  incumbents  must  possess  a 
high  degree  of  morality  rather  than  mere  worldly  posi- 
tion. Thus  Julian's  reform  of  the  pagan  priesthood  was 
distinctly  a  moral  crusade  and  his  letters  on  this  subject 
resemble  episcopal  admonitions.  The  persons  fitted  to  be 
priests  are  not  those  who  are  distinguished  by  wealth  or 
birth,  but  rather  those  who  are. known  for  their  love  of 
the  gods  and  men.  They  shall  be  held  accountable  for 
their  actions.  If  they  do  wrong,  they  shall  be  punished. 
But  so  long  as  they  hold  their  position,  they  deserve  the 
respect  of  all  men.  They  shall  take  their  turn  at  the 
offering  of  sacrifice,  and  for  the  required  number  of  days 
they  shall  give  their  undivided  energy  to  the  sacred 
tasks.  They  shall  be  of  spotless  purity  both  in  mind  and 
body.  They  shall  be  not  merely  ceremonially  pure;  they 
shall  practice  chastity  and  real  holiness.  Their  lives 
shall  be  better  than  the  lives  of  those  about  them,  not 
only  when  they  are  officiating,  but  when  they  are  living 
with  their  fellow  men.  They  shall  not  frequent  theatres 
or  wineshops;  they  shall  visit  the  Forum  or  the  Palace 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      141 

only  on  errands  of  justice  or  mercy.  They  shall  not 
read  novels  or  comedies  or  satires,  but  instead  history 
and  philosophy.  They  shall  be  chary  even  of  their  phil- 
osophers, avoiding  the  impiety  of  the  Epicureans  and  the 
Skeptics,  and  clinging  to  Pythagoras,  Plato,  and  the 
Stoics,  such  philosophy  as  teaches  the  existence  of  the 
gods  and  the  government  of  Providence. 

Then,  too,  the  services  of  the  pagan  church  must  be 
made  attractive.  In  imitation  of  the  Christians,  there 
must  be  music  and  choir-boys.  But  Julian  recognized 
still  another  source  of  the  strength  of  Christianity,  its 
practical  benevolence,  and  to  this  he  calls  attention.  It 
is  the  indifference  of  the  pagan  priests  toward  the  poor 
which  has  suggested  to  these  impious  Galileans  the  idea 
of  practicing  benevolence,  and  they  have  strengthened 
their  wretched  propaganda  by  covering  it  with  this  vir- 
tuous exterior.  They  practice  humanity  toward  stran- 
gers; they  are  at  pains  to  give  honorable  burial  to  the 
dead ;  and  they  lead  virtuous  lives.  The  pagan  priesthood 
should  imitate  them,  and  concern  itself  with  the  poor 
and  the  unfortunate.  He  remarks  that  the  Jews  have  no 
beggars,  and  that  the  impious  Galileans  support  not  only 
their  own  people  but  pagans  as  well.  It  is  disgraceful 
that  the  pagan  poor  should  be  deprived  of  the  aid  that  is 
owing  them. 

1  As  for  Julian  himself,  the  feelings  of  his  own  messiah- 
sliip  seem  to  have  grown  upon  him.  The  guard  of  angels 
becomes  more  specific.  He  is  a  vessel  chosen  of  the  gods, 


I42    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

and  his  trust  is  in  them.  With  his  accession  to  the  em- 
perorship his  allegiance  to  these  gods  had  grown  more 
outspoken  ;'and  just  as  Constantine  had  marched  against 
Maxentius  with  the  cross  of  Christ  on  his  banners,  so  in 
the  name  of  Jupiter  Julian  marched  against  Constantius. 
But  it  is  unjust  to  think  of  Julian  as  a  merely  fanciful 
and  distorted  mind  bent  upon  the  restoration  of  a  crass 
anthropomorphic  polytheism.  His  is  in  great  part  a  very 
beautiful  and  spiritual  mysticism.  He  felt  his  loneliness, 
as  all  mystics  do,  and  in  his  case  the  loneliness  was  in- 
creased by  the  inevitable  solitude  which  surrounded  the 
imperial  throne.  His  trust  in  the  gods  is  more  than  the 
resignation  of  the  fatalist:  it  is  touched  with  a  loving 
confidence  which  is  worthy  of  the  highest  Christianity ; 
and  this  confidence  is  all  the  more  remarkable  because 
it  seems  to  result  from  the  overcoming  of  the  feeling  that 
God  has  become  known  to  man  for  the  first  time  in  Chris- 
tianity. He  seems  inclined  to  believe  this,  and  yet  he 
conquers  this  inclination  and  asserts  the  historical  doc- 
trine of  a  continuous  revelation.  "It  is  wrong  to  praise 
the  men  of  old  without  following  their  ensample,  and  to 
suppose  that  while  God  was  eager  to  help  them,  he  will 
neglect  those  who  to-day  practice  virtue,  for  the  sake  of 
which  God  found  pleasure  in  them,"  and  again,  in  a  mo- 
ment of  depression,  "God  will  perhaps  provide  some- 
thing good,  for  it  is  not  probable  that  he  who  has  in- 
trusted himself  to  the  gods  will  be  neglected  or  left 
alone." 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      143 

His  own  suspicions  that  he  may  fail  in  his  task  are 
splendid  proofs  of  sanity,  for  the  genuine  paranoiac  has 
few  such  doubts ;  and  surely  we  should  hesitate  to  char- 
acterize his  reliance  on  the  gods  as  insanity  simply  be- 
cause he  called  his  deity  by  a  different  name.  Had  he 
succeeded  instead  of  failing,  we  should  look  upon  him  as 
one  of  the  greatest  figures  in  religious  history.  For  his 
work  was  inevitably  doomed  to  failure.  Roman  religion 
was  dead,  and  even  had  it  not  been  dead,  it  could  not 
have  been  quickened  into  newness  of  life  by  the  rein- 
forcement of  Neoplatonism. 

It  was  not  by  his  positive  and  constructive  work,  but 
by  his  negative  and  destructive  work,  that  he  produced 
a  lasting  effect.  It  is  little  wonder  that  Julian's  hostility 
to  Christianity  aroused  great  uneasiness  among  the 
Christians.  Men  were  still  alive  who  remembered  the 
severity  of  Diocletian's  persecutions.  Then,  too,  there 
was  an  added  horror  in  Julian's  case,  because  of  his  inti- 
mate acquaintance  with  Christianity  and  its  sacred 
books.  It  was  sufficiently  disagreeable  to  be  fined,  with- 
out suffering  the  additional  taunt  of  "how  hardly  shall  a 
rich  man  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  Heaven."  There  was 
also  a  peculiar  aggravation  in  his  attitude  toward  the 
Jews.  His  fondness  for  the  Jews  has  usually  been  attrib- 
uted to  his  desire  to  irritate  the  Christians,  but  this  is 
unjust.  His  fondness  for  them  was  genuine.  It  was 
founded  partly  on  his  own  mysticism,  which  found  re- 
sponse in  their  worship  of  the  mysterious  Jehovah,  and 


144    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

it  was  quickened  by  the  Jewish  elements  in  his  beloved 
Neoplatonism. 

?  But  all  these  are  small  things  compared  to  the  one 
great  work,  which  in  the  history  of  culture  Julian  was 
called  upon  to  do.  This  was  the  famous  edict  against  the 
Christian  teachers  of  rhetoric,  which  was  promulgated 
just  twelve  months  before  his  death.  Here  again  he  has 
been  accused  of  malice,  and  yet  the  facts  of  the  case  are 
far  otherwise.  For  us  to-day  the  immortal  gods  of  Homer 
and  Virgil  are  merely  the  paraphernalia  of  mythology, 
a  beautiful  poetic  symbolism.  But  for  the  pagans  of 
Julian's  day  they  were  living  realities.  We  need  no  better 
proof  of  this  than  the  fact  that  these  gods  were  so  real  to 
the  Christians,  too,  that  they  thought  of  them'as  demons. 
There  was,  therefore,  legitimate  ground  for  offense  at 
the  thought  of  Christian  teachers  expounding  Homer 
and  Virgil  to  their  Christian  pupils,  and  being  careful 
to  destroy  all  reverence  for  Jupiter  and  Minerva  and 
Apollo.  It  was  quite  improper  that  Christians  should 
desire  to  learn  such  things,  and  if  they  did,  they  should 
go  to  the  pagan  masters,  who  could  teach  them  prop- 
erly. Otherwise  let  them  be  content  with  their  own  re- 
ligious literature,  their  " Matthew  and  Luke,"  which 
they  could  interpret  according  to  their  own  sweet  will. 
This  edict  was  the  most  brilliant  stroke  of  Julian's 
policy,  and  it  had  the  most  far-reaching  results.  From 
Julian's  standpoint  the  carrying-out  of  this  edict  would 
deal  the  deathblow  to  Christianity.  Christians  would 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      145 

not  permit  their  children  to  attend  these  schools,  kept  by 
pagan  teachers;  and  yet  these  were  the  only  schools  in 
which  ancient  literature  was  taught.  Thus  the  rising 
generation  would  inevitably  have  been  divorced  from 
culture,  and  thus  the  Christian  Church  would  have  sunk 
into  a  position  of  inferiority  simply  because  of  its  igno- 
rance. Its  leaders  would  be  affected  in  the  same  fashion, 
and  the  Christian  clergy,  instead  of  being  experts  in  the- 
ology and  philosophy,  would  be  blind  and  leaders  of  the 
blind. 

r  Thus  the  problem  was  fairly  stated.  Are  ancient  re- 
ligion and  ancient  culture  inseparable?  Does  the  break- 
down of  ancient  religion  necessitate  the  destruction  of 
ancient  culture?  Christians  were  thus  brought  face  to 
face  with  their  relation  to  the  admirable  heritage  of 
pagan  thought.  The  problem  took  centuries  to  solve. 
It  was  almost  two  hundred  years  before  the  first  definite 
steps  in  this  direction  were  taken. 

Meantime,  though  the  edict  itself  was  soon  repealed, 
the  inconsistency  in  the  matter  was  brought  home  to  the 
minds  of  the  Christians.  They  did  not  feel  that  their 
own  holy  books  created  a  sufficient  body  of  literature. 
They  admitted  the  holiness  of  these  books,  but  it  is  very 
questionable  whether  they  were  fond  of  them.  The  Old 
Testament  especially  seems  to  have  been  thoroughly  dis- 
tasteful. Very  probably  the  fact  that  they  held  it  in 
common  with  the  Jews  made  it  seem  less  desirable.  They 
must,  however,  have  a  literature,  and  if  pagan  literature 


146    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

were  not  proper  for  them,  they  must  construct  one  of 
their  own.  Hence  the  curious  imitation  of  the  classics  in 
the  doggerel  of  the  Christian  poets,  the  attempts  to 
make  a  Homer  out  of  the  Old  Testament,  a  Plato  out  of 
the  Gospels,  to  say  nothing  of  Christian  odes  in  the  style 
of  Pindar.  The  effects  of  this  new  attitude  toward  pagan 
literature  soon  became  evident  on  all  sides.  It  is  not  far 
from  this  time  that  Jerome  —  who  loved  Cicero's  writ- 
ings and  his  style  far  better  than  the  Hebrew  Scriptures, 
which  he  was  to  make  into  the  Vulgate  —  finished  a  day 
of  fasting  by  reading  Cicero.  Thereupon,  as  he  tells  us 
so  graphically,  "a  high  fever  seized  upon  my  wearied 
body  and  my  limbs  were  racked  with  such  terrible  heat 
that  it  seemed  as  though  they  would  fall  apart.  Already 
the  preparations  for  my  burial  were  being  begun;  and 
the  warmth  of  life  had  left  my  body  and  I  was  cold,  ex- 
cept that  my  breast  was  still  warm  and  my  heart  beat 
fiercely.  Suddenly  I  had  the  sensation  as  though  I  were 
being  brought  to  the  judgment  seat.  There,  there  was  so 
much  light,  and  such  glory  shone  from  those  who  stood 
about,  that  I  fell  upon  my  face  and  did  not  dare  to  raise 
my  eyes.  Then  one  asked  me  who  I  was  and  I  answered, 
'  A  Christian'  (Christianus  sum) ;  'No!'  said  the  Judge, 
'thou  art  not  a  Christian,  thou  art  a  Ciceronian;  for 
where  thy  heart  is,  there  is  thy  treasure  also'  (non 
Christianus,  Ciceronianus  es).  Then  I  was  silent,  and 
felt  the  pain  of  the  blows  with  which  they  chastised  me." 
Yet  Jerome's  story  is  only  one  of  a  long  list  of  such  bat- 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      147 

ties,  fought  out  in  individuals,  between  the  instinct  for 
the  old  culture  and  the  power  of  the  new  religion. 

Thus  Julian  had  his  effect,  and  by  this  one  deed  alone 
his  life  would  be  justified.  But  he  was  influential  in  other 
and  less  tangible  ways.  When  the  Persian  campaign  put 
an  end  to  his  life,  there  followed  nineteen  years  of  reli- 
gious peace  (363-82),  a  precious  interlude  in  which  many 
treasures  of  art  and  architecture  were  saved.  Yet  these 
nineteen  years  of  peace  were  possible  only  because  of 
Julian's  reign  of  nineteen  months.  Thus  Julian  passes 
out  of  our  story,  and  as  he  does  so  we  may  listen  to  his 
dying  words.  They  have  been  preserved  for  us  by  Am- 
mianus,  who  heard  them  spoken,  and  though  they  may 
well  have  been  prepared  in  advance  and  made  ready 
against  the  event,  there  is  an  impressive  dignity  about 
them,  especially  in  Gibbon's  admirable  translation, 
which  I  quote,  and  they  afford  us  a  clear  insight  into 
that  combined  sense  of  duty  toward  men  and  trust  in 
God  which  was  the  keynote  of  Julian's  life. 

Friends  and  fellow  soldiers,  the  seasonable  period  of  my  de- 
parture is  now  arrived,  and  I  discharge,  with  the  cheerfulness 
of  a  ready  debtor,  the  demands  of  Nature.  I  have  learned 
from  philosophy  how  much  the  soul  is  more  excellent  than  the 
body ;  and  that  the  separation  of  the  nobler  substance  should 
be  the  height  of  joy  rather  than  of  affliction.  I  have  learned 
from  religion,  that  an  early  death  has  often  been  the  reward  of 
piety;  and  I  accept,  as  a  favor  of  the  gods,  the  mortal  stroke 
which  secures  me  from  the  danger  of  disgracing  a  character, 
which  has  hitherto  been  supported  by  virtue  and  fortitude, 
I  die  without  remorse,  as  I  have  lived  without  guilt.  I  am 


148    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

pleased  to  reflect  on  the  innocence  of  my  private  life ;  and  I  can 
affirm  with  confidence,  that  the  supreme  authority,  that  eman- 
ation of  the  divine  power,  has  been  preserved  in  my  hands 
pure  and  immaculate.  Detesting  the  corrupt  and  destructive 
maxims  of  despotism,  I  have  considered  the  happiness  of  the 
people  as  the  end  of  government.  Submitting  my  actions  to 
the  laws  of  Providence,  of  justice,  and  of  moderation,  I  have 
trusted  the  event  to  the  care  of  Providence.  Peace  was  the 
object  of  my  councils,  as  long  as  peace  was  consistent  with 
the  public  welfare ;  but,  when  the  imperious  voice  of  my  coun- 
try summoned  me  to  arms,  I  exposed  my  person  to  the  dan- 
gers of  war,  with  the  clear  foreknowledge  (which  I  had  acquired 
by  the  art  of  divination)  that  I  was  destined  to  fall  by  the 
sword.  I  now  offer  my  tribute  of  gratitude  to  the  Eternal 
Being,  who  has  not  suffered  me  to  perish  by  the  cruelty  of  a 
tyrant,  by  the  secret  dagger  of  conspiracy,  or  by  the  slow  tor- 
tures of  lingering  disease.  He  has  given  me,  in  the  midst  of 
an  honorable  career,  a  splendid  and  glorious  departure  from 
the  world;  and  I  hold  it  equally  absurd  and  equally  base 
to  solicit  or  to  decline  the  stroke  of  fate.  .  .  .  Thus  much 
I  have  attempted  to  say,  but  my  strength  fails  me,  and  I  feel 
the  approach  of  death.  I  shall  cautiously  refrain  from  any 
word  that  may  tend  to  influence  your  suffrages  in  the  election 
of  an  emperor.  My  choice  might  be  imprudent,  or  injudicious ; 
and  if  it  should  not  be  ratified  by  the  consent  of  the  army,  it 
might  be  fatal  to  the  person  whom  I  should  recommend.  I 
shall  only  as  a  good  citizen  express  my  hopes  that  the  Romans 
may  be  blessed  with  the  government  of  a  virtuous  sovereign. 

The  nineteen  years  of  peace  which  followed  Julian's 
death,  and  which  coincide  roughly  with  the  reign  of  the 
Emperor  Gratian,  were  destined  to  be  brought  to  an  end 
by  this  same  Gratian,  but  under  the  influence  of  a  great 
personality  to  whom  we  now  turn.  This  is  Ambrose, 
Bishop  of  Milan.  He  was  born,  probably  at  Trier,  about 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      149 

340,  when  Julian  was  nine  years  old.  His  father,  who 
was  Praetorian  Prefect  of  the  Gauls,  died  when  Ambrose 
was  twelve  years  old,  and  the  boy  went  with  his  mother 
to  Rome,  where  he  received  an  excellent  education.  He 
was  brought  up  in  the  Christian  faith,  and  gave  his  es- 
pecial attention  to  the  study  of  law.  Here  he  was  so  suc- 
cessful that  at  the  age  of  thirty-two  (372)  he  was  ap- 
pointed Governor  of  Liguria  and  Emilia,  and  took  up 
his  official  residence  at  Milan.  In  the  third  year  of  his 
governorship  (374),  Dionysius,  the  Catholic  Bishop  of 
Milan,  and  his  rival,  Auxentius,  the  Arian  Bishop,  both 
died,  and  a  stormy  election  of  a  successor  took  place. 
In  his  capacity  of  Governor,  Ambrose  presided  at  the 
election.  Then  the  extraordinary  thing  happened,  that 
both  parties  united  in  electing  him  to  the  bishopric.  The 
anomaly  of  the  situation  did  not  fail  to  impress  itself  on 
those  who  were  present,  and  the  story  arose,  and  it  may 
well  represent  the  truth,  that  when  Ambrose  was  ad- 
dressing the  people  in  the  church,  urging  upon  them  the 
necessity  of  maintaining  order,  suddenly  above  the  sound 
of  his  own  words  arose  the  penetrating  staccato  note  of  a 
child's  voice,  saying  with  unconscious  calm,  "Ambrose 
is  Bishop!  Ambrose  is  Bishop."  The  child,  who  knew 
Ambrose  by  sight,  seeing  him  standing  in  the  place  where 
the  bishop  was  wont  to  stand,  naturally  concluded 
that  he  must  therefore  be  bishop.  His  innocent  words 
were  a  prophecy,  and  a  few  months  later,  after  being 
baptized,  Ambrose  was  consecrated.  From  that  day 


150    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

(December  7,  374)  until  Good  Friday  (April  4,  397), 
when  he  died,  he  was  the  most  conspicuous  figure  in  the 
Western  world ;  about  him  are  grouped  the  other  charac- 
ters, and  he  stands  in  some  relation  to  every  important 
event. 

Whether  or  not  we  rejoice  in  him  as  a  great  prince  of 
the  church,  and  the  predecessor  of  Gregory  the  Great  in 
the  work  of  establishing  the  temporal  power,  we  must 
give  him  his  fair  due  as  one  of  the  great  characters  of 
history,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  had  we  known  him  we, 
too,  should  have  loved  him,  as  Augustine  and  so  many 
others  did.  Every  inch  a  man,  fearless,  straightforward, 
frank,  open,  and  incessantly  active,  the  world  owes  him 
a  great  debt ;  and  it  is  only  just  to  say  that  those  elements 
in  his  character,  of  which  we  find  it  hard  to  approve,  are 
the  stamp  of  his  age,  and  without  them  his  popularity 
and  therefore  his  power  would  not  have  been  so  great. 
There  is  no  better  way  to  study  the  history  of  the  last 
third  of  this  fourth  century  (363-95) ,  than  to  follow  the 
events  in  the  life  of  Ambrose. 

The  first  event,  and  one  which  was  to  have  great  con- 
sequences, was  his  friendship  with  the  Emperor  Gratian, 
who  spent  a  large  part  of  the  three  years  378-81  at  Mi- 
lan. Gratian  was  nineteen  at  the  beginning  of  their  inti- 
macy, but  he  had  been  emperor  for  eleven  years.  He  was 
destined  to  live  only  a  few  years  longer,  but  during  these 
years  he  was  under  the  control  of  Ambrose,  whom  he  called 
par  ens.  It  was  Gratian  who  put  an  end  to  Julian's  legacy 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      151 

of  nineteen  years  of  peace,  by  issuing  in  382  a  decree 
which  amounted  practically  to  the  disestablishment  of 
the  pagan  cults,  the  cutting  of  them  off  from  the  finan- 
cial support  of  the  state.  Up  to  this  time  the  nominally 
Christian  emperors  of  Rome  had  done  nothing  to  alter 
the  financial  relations  between  the  Roman  state  and  the 
old  Roman  religion.  They  had,  indeed,  changed  the 
official  relationship  in  almost  no  respect,  and  each  had 
continued  to  be  Pontifex  Maximus.  At  an  earlier  period 
in  his  life,  Gratian  had  rebelled  against  the  inconsist- 
ency of  this  position,  and  when  he  had  been  offered  the 
customary  title  of  Pontifex  Maximus  and  the  white 
robe  with  the  purple  border,  which  the  chief  priest  had 
been  wont  to  wear,  he  had  refused  them  both. 

Now,  doubtless  at  the  instigation  of  Ambrose,  he 
went  still  farther.  The  money  of  the  state  should  no 
longer  be  spent  for  the  support  of  pagan  ceremonial  and 
pagan  priesthoods.  The  lands  which  the  pagan  cults 
possessed  were  confiscated;  the  money  which  had  been 
used  for  the  games  went  into  the  public  treasure;  and 
the  money  for  the  salaries  of  the  Vestal  Virgins  was  used 
to  improve  the  postal  service. 

Then  followed  the  same  course  of  events  as  is  usual 
in  cases  of  disestablishment.  At  the  moment  of  the 
shock  private  benefaction  stepped  in  to  fill  the  breach, 
and  for  the  time  being  the  resources  of  paganism  were 
actually  larger  than  they  had  been  under  the  regime  of 
the  state.  But  this  was  only  a  momentary  enthusiasm, 


152    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

and  this  newly  acquired  income  soon  ceased,  either  by 
the  death  of  the  benefactors  or  by  the  lessening  of  their 
zeal.  So  far  as  the  public  cults  of  paganism  were  con- 
cerned, they  were  doomed  entirely  aside  from  any  legal 
prohibition. 

It  is  Ambrose,  again,  who  is  the  central  figure  in  a 
very  interesting  controversy  which  arose  at  this  time. 
It  is  the  dispute  over  the  removal  of  the  altar  of  Victory 
from  the  Senate  House  (Curia).  The  new  Senate  House, 
which  Julius  Caesar  had  begun  in  the  corner  of  the  Fo- 
rum, was  completed  by  Augustus,  who,  among  other 
things,  ornamented  the  altar  of  the  Goddess  Victoria, 
with  a  statue  of  the  goddess,  which  had  come  from  Ta- 
rentum,  in  southern  Italy.  The  custom  of  offering  a  few 
grains  of  incense  to  Victoria  had  become  a  tradition  in 
the  Senate,  and  had  gradually  acquired  the  colorlessness 
of  a  stereotyped  form.  In  addition,  the  abstract  charac- 
ter of  Victoria  made  her  of  no  particular  offense  to  the 
Christians.  But  certain  more  zealous  members  of  the 
new  religion  finally  prevailed  upon  Constantius  to  have 
it  removed.  Under  Julian's  regime  it  was  naturally  re- 
stored again,  and  now  under  Gratian  it  had  been  again 
removed.  In  itself  it  was  a  matter  of  no  great  signifi- 
cance, but  it  serves  as  an  illustration  not  only  of  the  pa- 
gan majority  in  the  Senate,  but  also  of  the  admirable 
character  of  some  of  these  pagans,  notably  Quintus 
Aurelius  Symmachus.  In  the  course  of  ten  years  (382- 
91)  four  times  an  effort  was  made  to  have  Victoria  re- 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      153 

stored  to  her  place.  The  first  deputation  journeyed 
north  in  vain,  and  never  succeeded  in  having  audience 
of  the  Emperor,  for  Pope  Damasus  sent  a  counter-peti- 
tion, and  this,  with  the  influence  of  Ambrose,  was  suffi- 
cient to  prevent  the  embassy  from  gaining  a  hearing. 
Two  years  later  (384),  nothing  daunted,  the  pagan  party 
again  presented  a  petition,  this  time  to  Valentinian  II, 
for  Gratian  was  dead.  The  writer  is  Symmachus  in  his 
capacity  of  Prefect  of  the  city  of  Rome.  The  arguments 
are  stereotyped,  but  the  eloquence  is  very  great.  Rome 
attained  fame  and  glory  under  the  old  gods.  With  the 
coming  of  this  new  religion  her  power  has  been  declining. 
To  this  new  religion  must  be  attributed  the  disasters 
which  she  has  undergone,  especially  the  famine  of  the 
past  year.  It  is  Roma  herself  who  is  speaking,  and  she 
pleads  for  tolerance  and  liberty  in  her  old  age. 
s  Ambrose  himself  answered  this  petition.  It  is  not  the 
gods  of  the  state  who  saved  Rome.  In  fact,  on  occasions 
they  actually  failed,  as  when  the  Gauls  captured  the 
city,  or  when  Hannibal  approached  the  walls.  It  was  not 
their  religion,  but  their  own  energetic  character  which 
made  the  Romans  what  they  were.  We  may  not  admire 
the  argument,  but  it  was  successful,  and  again  the  peti- 
tion was  refused. 

But  the  struggles  of  Ambrose  were  not  confined  to  his 
contest  with  the  Senate.  There  were  more  vital  conflicts 
nearer  at  hand,  notably  with  the  empress-mother,  Jus- 
tina  (the  widow  of  Valentinian  I,  the  mother  of  Valentin- 


154    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

ian  II,  and  the  mother-in-law  of  Theodosius).  She  was 
an  Arian,  and  interested  in  the  spread  of  this  heresy,  and 
anxious  to  obtain  for  it  various  churches  in  Milan.  She 
requested  that  the  Portian  Basilica,  which  lay  outside 
the  city,  should  be  given  to  the  Arians.  When  this  was 
refused,  a  request  was  made  for  the  new  basilica,  in  the 
city  itself,  and  when  this,  too,  was  denied,  she  proceeded 
to  take  the  Portian  Basilica  by  force.  But  Ambrose  and 
his  followers  held  the  church,  and  the  matter  ended  with- 
out bloodshed,  in  the  defeat  of  the  Empress.  A  year 
later  (January  23,  386),  matters  came  again  to  a  climax, 
when  the  young  Valentinian,  at  the  instance  of  the  Em- 
press, demanded  that  Ambrose  should  either  yield  to  his 
request  or  leave  the  city.  Then  the  figure  of  Ambrose 
stood  forth  in  all  its  majesty.  From  the  very  beginning 
it  has  not  been  a  mere  discussion  regarding  heresy,  a  far 
greater  principle  has  been  at  stake.  It  is  the  principle  of 
the  domination  of  the  church.  And  now  the  time  is  ripe 
for  the  full  expression.  The  church  may  indeed  judge 
laymen,  but  laymen  should  not  judge  the  church,  and 
an  emperor  is  after  all  only  a  layman.  There  is  no  ques- 
tion of  Ambrose  leaving  the  bishopric.  Valentinian  has 
nothing  to  say  about  it.  It  had  been  given  to  Ambrose 
by  the  unamimous  vote  of  the  people.  As  for  Arianism, 
he  will  fight  it  to  the  death  The  rumor  soon  spread 
through  the  city,  that  Ambrose  would  be  removed  by 
force.  He  took  up  his  residence  in  the  basilica,  where 
he  was  surrounded  by  his  friends,  who  were  willing  and 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE     155 

eager  to  lose  their  lives  in  his  defense.  But  the  days  of 
waiting  were  wearisome,  and  even  the  ardor  of  those  who 
loved  him  best  might  well  become  cooled  by  inaction. 
To  give  employment  to  the  waiting  people,  he  introduced 
the  antiphonal  chant  which  has  been  forever  named  after 
him.  Thus  he  became  the  first  great  Latin  hymn- writer 
of  the  church,  especially  famous  for  the  three  wonderful 
hymns:  the  hymn  for  Christmas,  "Veni  Redemptor 
Gentium,"  the  morning  hymn,  "Sterne  Rerum  Crea- 
tor," and  the  evening  hymn,  "Deus  Creator  Omnium." 
In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  meet  with  one  of  the  audi- 
tors of  this  new  music,  Augustine,  into  whose  mind  this 
scene  came  back  as  he  lay  on  his  bed,  crushed  with  grief 
over  the  death  of  his  mother.  I  quote  the  passage  from 
the  Confessions  in  Bigg's  translation :  — 

Then  I  slept  and  awoke  and  found  my  sorrow  diminished 
not  a  little.  And  as  I  lay  alone  upon  my  bed,  I  recalled  the 
truthful  verses  of  thy  servant  Ambrose.  For  indeed  thou 
art 

Creator  of  the  earth  and  sky, 
Ruling  the  firmament  on  high, 
Clothing  the  day  with  robes  of  light, 
Blessing  with  gracious  sleep  the  night 
That  rest  may  comfort  weary  men, 
And  brace  to  useful  toil  again, 
And  soothe  awhile  the  harassed  mind, 
And  sorrow's  weary  load  unbind. 

There  was  nothing  to  be  gained  by  fighting  Ambrose. 
Justina  yielded ;  and  the  Arian  heresy  failed  to  receive 
its  church  in  Milan.  Thus  Ambrose  had  controlled 


156    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Gratian  and  had  won  his  battle  with  Justina.  But  there 
remained  for  him  the  greatest  conquest  of  all,  that  of 
Theodosius,  a  conquest  all  the  more  interesting  because 
Theodosius  was  not  an  Arian,  but  Orthodox.  In  the 
year  390,  the  population  of  Thessalonica  had  incurred 
the  wrath  of  Theodosius.  In  a  moment  of  terrible  anger 
he  had  ordered  that  the  whole  population  should  be  put 
to  death.  On  April  30, 390,  the  seventy-ninth  anniversary 
of  the  day  when  Christianity  had  been  made  the  religion 
of  the  Roman  state,  they  were  driven,  or  perhaps  lured 
into  the  circus.  The  doors  were  shut,  and  for  three  hours 
the  ghastly  butchery  continued.  Between  seven  and 
fifteen  thousand  people  were  murdered. 

When  Ambrose  heard  of  this  terrible  deed,  he  wrote 
to  the  Emperor,  rebuking  him  for  his  action.  But  when 
Theodosius,  instead  of  showing  signs  of  repentance,  ac- 
tually presumed  to  enter  the  church  at  Milan,  that 
church  which  is  now  worthily  called  S.  Ambrogio,  Am- 
brose met  him  at  the  door,  and,  if  we  may  follow  Theo- 
doret,  rebuked  him,  calling  upon  him  to  repent,  and  to 
realize  the  enormity  of  his  act  and  the  offense  which  he 
had  committed  against  God,  and  bidding  him  depart 
to  devote  himself  to  penitence  and  prayer. 

Theodosius  obeyed,  and  after  months  of  delay  and 
useless  attempts  at  reconciliation,  Ambrose  agreed  that 
he  should  be  pardoned,  but  only  on  two  conditions: 
first,  that  he  should  do  public  penance,  and  second,  that 
he  should  prepare  a  law  requiring  an  interval  of  thirty 


JULIAN  CALLED  THE  APOSTATE      157 

days  between  the  passing  of  a  capital  sentence  and  its 
execution. 

On  Christmas  Day,  390,  Theodosius  entered  the 
church  and  performed  his  penance.  He  bowed  himself 
to  the  ground,  smote  his  forehead,  and  repeated  the 
twenty-fifth  verse  of  the  one  hundred  and  nineteenth 
psalm:  "My  soul  cleave th  unto  the  dust,  quicken  me 
according  to  Thy  word."  But  even  then  his  humbling 
was  not  complete;  for  when  he  went  up  the  steps  into 
the  chancel  to  present  his  offering,  as  was  the  custom  in 
the  Eastern  Church,  Ambrose  sent  a  deacon  to  tell  him 
that  his  place  was  outside  the  chancel  rail,  that  "purple 
makes  emperors,  not  priests." 

Scarcely  could  there  be  found  a  clearer  proof  than  this 
that  the  ancient  regime  had  passed,  when  an  emperor, 
whose  predecessors,  less  than  a  century  before,  had  been 
themselves  thought  of  as  divine,  and  as  proper  objects  of 
worship,  humbles  himself  in  the  dust  before  the  princi- 
ples of  a  new  religion,  and  at  the  command  of  one  of  its 
priests.  As  for  the  figure  of  the  man  who  gave  the  com- 
mand, the  eye  of  the  mind  has  no  difficulty  in  look- 
ing forward  from  him  to  Gregory  the  Great,  and  from 
him  to  that  other  Gregory  with  Henry  the  Fourth  at 
Canossa. 

But  there  are  many  things  yet  to  be  done  before  we 
reach  Gregory  the  Great ;  and  though  the  Emperor  might 
lie  prostrate  on  the  pavement  of  S.  Ambrogio,  paganism 
as  an  instinct  was  not  yet  dead,  and  Rome  had  not  yet 


158    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

suffered  all  her  afflictions.  Worse  things  were  in  store 
for  her,  and  there  was  to  be  even  yet  a  great  revulsion 
back  to  the  old  pagan  faith.  Spirituality  was  to  win  still 
another  victory.  But  all  this  takes  us  to  the  next  chapter 
in  the  person  of  Saint  Augustine. 


CHAPTER  VI 

AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD:    THE  STRUGGLE  OF 
PAGAN  AND  CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT 

WHEN  on  January  17,  395,  the  Emperor  Theodosius 
died,  he  left  behind  him  as  rulers  his  two  sons,  Arcadius 
and  Honorius,  both  of  them  already  established  on  the 
throne,  Arcadius  in  the  East,  Honorius  in  the  West. 
The  separation  of  the  Empire  into  East  and  West,  which 
had  been  in  practical  existence  for  the  last  century,  had 
received  its  historical  confirmation.  Thus  at  the  close  of 
the  fourth  century,  the  great  event  of  the  fifth  century 
was  clearly  foreshadowed,  the  separation  of  East  and 
West.  But  this  separation  was  only  a  part  of  a  more  gen- 
eral break-up  of  the  Empire,  a  break-up  which  was 
caused  by  what  we  call  the  barbarian  invasions.  These 
barbarian  invasions,  which  were  of  course  preparing  the 
way  for  modern  Europe,  and  with  which  we  shall  be 
dealing  in  all  the  three  chapters  which  are  left  for  us,  are 
of  two  distinct  kinds,  the  general  movement  of  the  Teu- 
tonic peoples,  which  divides  itself  into  the  specific  inva- 
sions of  Visigoths,  Vandals,  Ostrogoths,  Lombards,  and 
Franks,  and  which  resulted  in  each  case  in  a  more  or  less 
permanent  settlement;  and  secondly,  the  marauding 
invasions,  notably  that  of  the  Huns. 

But  while  these  invasions  tended  to  break  up  the  Em- 


160    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

pire,  they  also  rendered  permanent  the  separation  of  the 
East  from  the  West.  The  fact  of  this  separation  is  very 
important,  and  the  results  of  it  are  far-reaching.  From 
the  Western  standpoint,  in  which  we  are  of  necessity  in- 
terested, it  was  equivalent  to  the  elimination  of  the  Ori- 
ental elements  which  had  come  into  the  Empire.  It  was 
a  renewal  of  the  old  distinction  between  Greece  which 
faced  east,  and  Rome  which  faced  west.  We  see  this 
best  illustrated  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church. 
The  East  is  by  nature  given  to  philosophy  and  intro- 
spection, and  thus  we  see  the  Eastern  Church  devoting 
its  chief  strength  to  the  formation  of  creeds;  but  the 
Western  world  was  essentially  practical,  hence  the  West- 
ern Church  expended  its  energy  in  organization  and 
disciplinary  regulations. 

But  the  effect  of  the  separation  reached  even  farther. 
Constantinople  had  taken  precedence  over  Rome,  she 
had  absorbed  the  military  strength  of  the  Empire.  The 
Western  Empire  was  relatively  unprotected.  Thus  for 
nine  centuries  Constantinople  was  able  to  protect  her- 
self, and  thus  spiritual  and  temporal  dominion  were  kept 
distinct.  But  Rome  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  barbarians, 
and  while  she  stood  at  times  theoretically  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Eastern  Empire,  this  protection  was  a 
theory  rather  than  a  practice.  Hence  of  necessity  the 
spiritual  power  became  engaged  in  temporal  affairs,  and 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire  came  into  existence.  But  in 
tracing  the  results  of  this  separation  we  have  gone  far 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     161 

beyond  the  bounds  of  our  fifth  century,  whither  we  must 
now  return. 

During  the  fifth  century,  in  the  Western  Empire,  to 
which  we  must  confine  ourselves,  there  was  another  strug- 
gle in  progress,  much  more  intense  than  that  of  Rome 
and  the  barbarians.  It  was  the  intellectual  struggle  be- 
tween pagan  and  Christian  thought.  The  physical  strug- 
gle had  ended.  The  series  of  edicts  against  pagan  prac- 
tices, which  had  emanated  from  the  Christian  emperors, 
had  grown  more  and  more  severe,  until  they  reached 
their  culmination  in  the  "nullus  omnino"  of  Theodosius. 
"Let  no  man  in  any  place  in  any  city  make  sacrifice  or 
worship  the  Lar  with  burnt  offering  or  the  Genius  with 
wine  or  the  Penates  with  perfumes,  —  let  him  light  no 
lamp,  burn  no  incense,  hang  no  garlands'*  (Cod.  Theod. 

XVI,  10,  12). 

Be  it  never  so-  well  concealed,  pagan  sacrifice  was  be- 
coming almost  an  impossibility.  One  was  not  safe  even 
in  the  forests,  and  all  that  was  left  of  it  was  what  the 
Christian  Church  had  itself  adopted  by  compromise, 
and  what  was  able  to  conceal  itself  in  the  churches 
themselves,  and  under  the  guise  of  Christian  practice. 
It  all  comes  to  an  end  with  a  pathetic  rapidity.  The  law 
books  show  us  edict  after  edict,  containing  more  and 
more  detailed  prohibitions  of  sacrifice,  giving  orders  for 
the  destruction  of  cult  statues,  commanding  that  the 
temples  should  be  put  to  public  uses,  and  that  those 
in  possession  of  them  should  be  turned  out.  And  that 


162  ^  RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

these  edicts  were  no  mere  paper  legislation,  all  our 
other  sources  prove  clearly.  Before  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury all  the  old  priesthoods  had  disappeared,  and  all 
the  references  to  Mithras  and  Magna  Mater,  which 
in  370  and  380  are  so  frequent,  cease  entirely.  In 
many  cases  efforts  were  made  to  save  the  cult  statues, 
and  in  certain  cases  they  were  crowned  with  success. 
Thus  the  formal  expression  of  paganism  was  de- 
stroyed; and  the  fact  that  within  a  decade,  Stilicho 
dared  to  burn  the  Sibylline  Oracles,  and  met  with  no 
opposition,  shows  how  thoroughly  the  work  had  been 
done. 

But  the  intellectual  struggle  had  grown  all  the  more 
keen.  The  intense  individualism  of  the  early  centuries, 
which  had  deprived  Christianity  of  all  political  interest, 
was  disappearing.  In  the  presence  of  real  physical  dan- 
ger from  without,  the  dormant  instincts  of  patriotism 
were  being  aroused.  But  with  that  mechanical  associa- 
tion of  ideas  which  characterizes  the  action  of  instincts, 
there  came  with  the  renaissance  of  patriotism,  also  the 
renaissance  of  pagan  ideas  in  religion.  We  are  fortunate 
in  that  we  have  in  this  fourth  century  a  character,  who 
not  only  exhibits  in  himself  the  struggle  of  pagan  and 
Christian  thought,  but  who  does  more  than  that,  and 
after  exhibiting  the  conquest  of  Christian  thought,  enters 
the  field  again  to  make  easy  for  others  the  victory  which 
he  had  obtained  without  human  help.  This  is  Augustine, 
the  Bishop  of  Hippo.  But  to  understand  him  and  the 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD    163 

forces  with  which  he  had  to  cope,  we  must  first  of  all 
examine  the  political  situation. 

Our  period  covers  sixty  years  (395-455),  from  the 
death  of  Theodosius  to  the  capture  of  Rome  by  the  Van- 
dals. It  includes  the  reigns  of  two  emperors :  of  Honorius, 
the  son  of  Theodosius,  from  395  to  423;  and  of  Valen- 
tinian  III,  425  to  455.  When  Theodosius  died,  his  son 
Honorius  was,  to  be  sure,  only  eleven  years  old,  but  he 
lived  to  be  thirty-nine,  and  during  the  whole  6f  his  life 
failed  to  give  the  faintest  indication  of  possessing  a  char- 
acter or  of  being  in  any  way  conscious  of  the  opportuni- 
ties and  responsibilities  of  life.  He  belonged  to  that  class 
of  useless  rulers,  whose  absolute  nonentity  is  only  exag- 
gerated by  the  prominence  of  the  post  which  fate  has 
given  them. 

But  what  Honorius  lacked,  his  general  Stilicho  made 
good.  The  son  of  a  Vandal  chief,  he  brought  a  combina- 
tion of. unquestioned  ability  and  doubtful  devotion  to 
the  service  of  the  Empire,  and  until  his  death  (in  408)  he 
was  the  real  ruler.  The  events  of  Honorius's  reign  centre 
all  of  them  in  the  invasion  of  the  Visigoths.  We  must, 
therefore,  say  a  word  concerning  the  past  history  of 
these  Visigoths. 

The  great  Gothic  nation  had  during  the  third  and 
fourth  centuries  moved  across  Europe  in  a  generally 
southerly  direction,  so  that  about  the  middle  of  the  fourth 
century  the  Goths  were  settled  in  southern  Russia.  It 
was  at  this  time,  about  370,  that  the  vanguard  of  the 


164    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Huns  crossed  into  Europe.  The  coming  of  the  Huns  re- 
sulted in  the  separation  of  the  Gothic  nation  into  two 
parts;  that  part  which  lay  to  the  east,  forever  after- 
wards known  to  history  as  the  Ostrogoths,  and  which 
came  into  subjection  to  the  Huns;  and  that  part  which 
lay  to  the  west,  and  whose  .inhabitants  were  forever 
afterwards  known  as  the  Visigoths.  In  our  present  chap- 
ter we  shall  leave  the  Ostrogoths  in  subjection  to  the 
Huns.  The  Huns  are  to  rule  over  them  for  eighty  years, 
until,  in  454,  the  Ostrogoths  throw  off  the  yoke;  but  that 
belongs  to  the  next  chapter. 

It  is  with  the  West  Goths,  the  Visi-goths,  that  we  have 
now  to  do.  At  the  approach  of  the  Huns,  these  Visigoths 
fled  into  the  Roman  Empire.  A  misunderstanding  con- 
nected with  their  flight  caused  the  Battle  of  Adrianople 
(378),  where  the  Emperor  Valens  lost  his  life.  For  seven- 
teen years  they  remained  as  vassals  of  the  Empire,  until, 
in  395,  after  the  death  of  Theodosius,  they  chose  Alaric 
as  their  king.  With  the  accession  of  their  king  Alaric, 
the  Visigoths  step  into  history  as  a  nation.  They  are  no 
longer  a  mere  wandering  horde  of  barbarians.  They  are 
a  united  people  with  a  definite  purpose.  They  were  des- 
tined eventually  to  lay  the  foundation  of  the  greatness 
of  Spain,  but  for  the  present  they  contented  themselves 
with  the  invasion  of  Greece.  Five  years  later,  in  400, 
Alaric  led  his  nation  into  Italy.  They  came  by  way  of 
Belgrade,  the  valley  of  the  Save,  Laibach,  and  so  over 
the  "  Pear-Tree"  Pass  to  Aquileia.  They  marched  on Ra- 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     165 

venna,  but  did  not  succeed  in  capturing  it,  and  so  turned 
northwest  toward  Milan.  Meantime,  terror  had  seized 
on  the  people  of  Rome,  and  many  of  the  wealthier  fami- 
lies were  considering  the  ad  visibility  of  going  to  Corsica, 
or  Sardinia,  or  southern  France,  a  premature  pilgrimage 
to  Avignon !  But  in  spite  of  Alaric's  vision  of  ' '  Penetrabis 
ad urbem  "  ("Thou  shalt  go  even  unto  the  City  "),  he  did 
not  as  yet  march  upon  Rome,  and  the  inhabitants  began 
to  repair  the  walls,  those  walls  which  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  before  Aurelian  had  caused  to  be  built. 

In  404,  the  Emperor  Honorius  visited  Rome  for  the 
purpose  of  celebrating  there  a  triumph  over  the  Visi- 
goths. These  later  emperors  did  not  love  Rome,  because 
Rome  did  not  love  them.  But  in  spite  of  the  lack  of  hom- 
age, the  close  approximation  to  disrespect  which  was 
always  manifested  toward  them  in  Rome,  sentiment  de- 
manded that  they  should  return  thither  to  celebrate  the 
landmarks  in  their  career.  In  connection  with  the  cele- 
bration of  this  triumph,  gladiatorial  games  were  given  in 
the  Colosseum.  These  games  afforded  an  opportunity 
for  the  performance  of  a  deed  worthy  of  the  loftiest  prin- 
ciples of  Christianity.  The  contest  had  already  begun, 
when,  from  the  upper  row  of  the  spectators'  seats,  a  fig- 
ure was  seen  advancing,  seat  by  seat,  moving  down 
toward  the  centre,  and  finally  springing  over  the  balus- 
trade into  the  arena  itself.  There,  amidst  the  breathless 
silence  of  the  public,  the  man  tried  to  separate  the  con- 
testants. Then,  as  the  multitude  realized  what  he  was 


166    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

attempting,  that  he  was  there  to  spoil  their  pleasure,  the 
roar  of  the  human  beast  burst  forth,  the  man  fell  dead  at 
the  hands  of  the  contestants,  and  the  games  proceeded. 
It  was  Telemachus,  an  Eastern  monk,  who  had  made 
this  protest  against  the  barbaric  past.  Christianity 
might  indeed  be  called  upon  to  respect  ancient  culture 
and  to  learn  its  lessons;  but  the  new  religion  was  ushering 
in  a  new  world,  in  which  all  was  not  cruelty,  in  which 
the  gain  in  humanity  might  offset  something  of  the  loss 
of  culture.  The  sacrifice  of  Telemachus  was  not  in  vain, 
for  Honorius  shortly  after  decreed  that  gladiatorial 
games  should  cease. 

The  following  year  (405),  Italy  suffered  from  one  of 
those  marauding  invasions,  which  are  to  be  distinguished 
from  the  more  orderly  invasions,  such  as  that  of  Alaric. 
About  two  hundred  thousand  men,  under  the  leadership 
of  a  certain  Radagaisus,  started  for  Rome,  and  chose  the 
route  through  the  hills  of  Tuscany.  It  was  there  that 
Stilicho  met  and  defeated  them,  and  sold  as  slaves  those 
of  their  army  who  were  still  alive.  So  numerous  were 
they  that  they  sold  for  an  aureus  —  about  fifteen  francs 
—  apiece;  and  even  then  the  bargain  was  a  poor  one, 
because  the  captives  were  very  likely  to  die,  and  the 
purchaser  must  pay  the  cost  of  burial. 

After  this  brilliant  victory  of  Stilicho,  it  'is  sad  to 
learn  that  he  was  put  to  death  three  years  later  (408)  as  a 
traitor.  But  whether  this  act  was  just  or  not,  it  brought 
its  own  punishment,  for  there  was  no  one  to  take  his 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOP    167 

place,  when  in  the  same  year  Alaric  began  his  second 
invasion  of  Italy.  It  was  August  when  Stilicho  was  put 
to  death  at  Ravenna,  and  now  in  September,  Alaric  and 
his  army  stood  outside  the  walls  of  Rome ;  and  the  first 
siege  began.  Inside  there  is  the  story  of  famine  and  pes- 
tilence which  was  to  become  so  familiar  to  Rome  at  in- 
tervals during  more  than  a  century  to  come.  For  a  mo- 
ment, like  a  flash  of  lightning  in  the  dark,  we  have  a  vis- 
ion of  the  depths  of  the  popular  religious  consciousness. 
There  is  a  renascence  of  paganism,  a  harking-back  to  the 
old  instincts  in  the  time  of  peril.  A  great  longing  arose 
among  the  people  that  certain  magic  rites  should  be  per- 
formed by  the  hams  pices.  So  strong  did  this  feeling 
grow,  that  Pope  Innocent  (the  First)  gave  his  consent, 
adding  the  quaint  reason  that  "he  preferred  the  safety 
of  the  city  to  his  own  private  opinion."  But  although 
the  consent  was  given,  there  was  no  one  who  dared  to 
perform  the  sacrifice. 

Meantime  negotiations  for  peace  were  being  carried 
on,  but  the  ambassadors  were  dealing  with  a  hard  task- 
master, who  was  so  sure  of  himself  that  he  could  afford 
to  jest  with  them.  When  they  boasted  that  if  Alaric  did 
not  make  peace  they  might  suddenly  attack  him  with  a 
great  multitude,  he  answered  them  in  a  phrase  which 
has  become  classic,  a  bit  of  Teutonic  mother-wit,  which 
seems  as  though  it  had  stepped  backwards  out  of  the 
pages  of  Shakespeare,  "The  thicker  the  grass,  the  easier 
it  is  to  mow." 


168    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

He  demanded  all  the  gold,  and  all  the  silver,  and  all 
valuable  movable  property,  and  all  slaves  who  were  of 
barbarian  origin ;  and  when  the  Romans  asked  what  they 
would  have  left,  he  answered  "  Your  lives."  But  finally 
terms  were  obtained  by  which  Rome  paid  five  thousand 
pounds  weight  of  gold,  thirty  thousand  pounds  weight 
of  silver,  four  thousand  robes  of  silk,  three  thousand 
hides  dyed  scarlet,  and  three  thousand  pounds  of 
pepper. 

Alaric  now  consented  to  retreat  to  the  Danube  pro- 
vinces, there  to  establish  his  own  kingdom  under  the 
nominal  protectorate  of  Rome.  We  have  no  time  to 
speculate  on  the  amazing  change  in  subsequent  history 
which  the  fulfillment  of  this  project  would  have  por- 
tended. For  the  proposal  was  refused  by  Honorius,  who, 
busied  with  his  poultry  farming  at  Ravenna,  had  no  in- 
terest in  Rome. 

Thus,  in  the  year  409,  began  the  second  siege  of  Rome, 
and  the  denouement  was  very  curious.  Instead  of  at- 
tacking Rome  itself,  Alaric  captured  Ostia,  and  so  cut 
off  Rome's  supply  of  grain.  The  city  soon  came  to  terms, 
and  appointed  a  joint  emperor  of  Romans  and  Goths 
in  the  person  of  Attalus,  who  had  been  prefect  of  the 
city.  We  cannot  enter  into  the  fortunes  of  Attalus. 
Suffice  to  say  that  after  a  reign  as  short  as  it  was  impu- 
dent, and  a  failure  which  at  one  time  came  very  close  to 
being  a  success,  he  was  deprived  of  his  power  and  Ho- 
norius was  relieved  of  his  rival.  But  even  then  Alaric 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     169 

could  make  no  peace  with  Ravenna,  and  so  in  410,  for  a 
third  time  he  took  up  the  siege  of  the  long-suffering  city 
of  Rome.  But  on  this  occasion  some  of  the  inhabitants 
preferred  the  mildness  of  Alaric  to  the  inconveniences  of 
a  siege,  and  the  Porta  Salaria  was  opened  to  him  during 
the  night.  Thus  for  the  first  time  in  eight  hundred  years, 
since  the  Gallic  invasion  of  B.C.  390,  Rome  was  entered 
by  hostile  troops.  It  is  by  no  means  easy  to  reach  a  de- 
cision as  to  the  amount  of  damage  done  by  the  Goths. 
Tradition  undoubtedly  exaggerated  its  extent.  But  with 
the  rise  of  German  scholarship  the  tendency  has  all  been 
in  the  opposite  direction,  until  one  is  tempted  to  wonder 
whether  they  have  not  carried  the  defense  of  their  ances- 
tors to  an  unwarranted  extent.  Thus  much  is  doubtless 
true,  that  the  destruction  of  Rome,  so  far  as  its  monu- 
ments and  buildings  are  concerned,  was  not  accom- 
plished by  the  Goths  and  Vandals.  It  was  the  Renais- 
sance itself  which  did  most  of  the  destructive  work.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  violent  acts  committed  against 
persons,  and  the  destruction  and  confiscation  of  mov- 
able property,  were  probably  much  greater  than  our 
modern  authorities  are  willing  to  admit. 

At  the  end  of  six  days,  Alaric  and  his  people  left  Rome, 
marching  southwards.  There  Alaric  himself  died  in  Cala- 
bria, and  was  buried  under  the  waters  of  the  river  Bu- 
sento.  Then  the  Visigoths  marched  northwards,  out  of 
Italy  and  out  of  our  story,  except  that  we  may  add  that 
they  spent  three  years  in  Gaul  and  moved  into  Spain 


170 "  RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

in  415,  where  in  the  course  of  the  sixth  century  they  re- 
nounced their  Arian  heresy  and  became  Catholics,  and 
in  711  were  conquered  by  the  Moors. 

In  423  the  parody  on  human  life,  which  Honorius  had 
been  acting  for  thirty-nine  years,  was  brought  to  a  close 
by  a  fortunate  attack  of  dropsy,  and  after  a  short  period 
of  usurpation  Valentinian  III,  Placidia's  seven-year-old 
son,  became  emperor,  but  Placidia,  the  daughter  of 
Theodosius,  reigned  in  his  name. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  we  have  seen  how  the 
Huns  came  out  of  Asia,  how  they  settled  in  Russia,  and 
how  they  caused  the  Gothic  nation  to  break  into  two 
parts,  the  East  or  Ostro-Goths,  whom  they  brought  into 
subjection  unto  themselves,  and  the  West  or  Visi-Goths, 
of  whose  history  we  have  already  briefly  treated.  The 
question  of  exactly  who  these  Huns  were  has  been  much 
disputed.  It  has  been  thought  that  they  were  identical 
with  the  Hiung-Nu,  against  whom  the  Chinese  built  the 
great  wall.  Unfortunately  the  attractiveness  of  this  sug- 
gestion is  greater  than  its  certainty,  but  it  is  at  least 
possible.  In  any  case,  Ammianus  Marcellinus  has  left 
us  an  accurate  description  of  their  appearance  (xxxi, 
2):-. 

They  have  all  of  them  well-knit  and  strong  limbs  and 
fine  necks.  They  are  extremely  ugly  and  terrible  to  behold, 
so  that  one  would  think  them  two-footed  beasts,  or  like  those 
roughly  hewn  stakes  which  are  used  for  bridge  railings.  And 
although  they  do  have  a  certain  ugly  resemblance  to  man,they 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD    171 

are  so  uncivilized  that  they  do  not  use  fire  or  flavor  their  food, 
but  they  eat  the  roots  of  wild  herbs  and  the  half-raw  meat  of 
any  sort  of  animal,  meat  which  they  warm  up  by  placing  it  be- 
tween their  legs  and  the  backs  of  their  horses.  They  have  no 
houses,  and  they  avoid  the  shelter  of  roofs  as  they  would 
the  grave.  For  among  them  not  even  a  cottage  with  a  roof 
of  reeds  can  be  found.  But  wandering  over  the  mountains  and 
through  the  woods  from  their  earliest  childhood,  they  are  ac- 
customed to  endure  cold  and  hunger  and  thirst.  And  except 
in  the  most  dire  necessity  they  never  go  under  a  roof,  and  when 
they  are  indoors  they  never  feel  that  they  are  safe.  They  wear 
linen  garments  or  garments  sewn  together  from  the  skins  of 
field  mice,  and  they  have  no  change  of  garments,  for  ex- 
ample, for  the  house  and  for  out  of  doors.  But  no  matter  how 
the  color  changes,  the  shirt  which  has  once  been  put  over  the 
neck  is  not  taken  off  or  changed  until  by  along  process  of  de- 
cay it  has  fallen  into  rags.  They  cover  their  heads  with  peaked 
caps;  their  hairy  legs  are  clothed  with  goatskins,  and  their 
shoes  are  so  shapeless  as  to  prevent  them  from  walking  freely. 
And  for  this  reason  they  are  not  well  adapted  to  encounters  on 
foot,  but  they  perform  their  customary  tasks,  as  it  were, 
glued  to  their  horses,  which  are  hardy  but  ugly  to  look  at, 
and  which  they  sometimes  ride  woman-fashion.  On  horseback 
every  man  in  this  nation  night  and  day  buys  and  sells, 
takes  food  and  drink,  and  bending  over  the  slender  neck  of 
the  horse  falls  into  deep  sleep  and  into  the  changeful  pano- 
rama of  dreams.  And  when  a  discussion  is  to  take  place  upon 
important  matters,  it  is  on  horseback  that  they  all  meet. 
They  hold  their  discussions  uncontrolled  by  kingly  dignity, 
but,  satisfied  with  the  disorderly  leadership  of  their  chiefs, 
they  interrupt  with  whatever  comes  into  their  minds.  .  .  • 
No  one  of  them  plows  or  even  touches  a  plow-handle.  They 
all  live  without  fixed  abode.  They  wander  abroad  without 
home,  without  law,  and  without  fixed  rules  of  life,  like  those 
who  are  forever  fugitives,  together  with  their  wagons  in  which 
they  live,  where  their  wives  prepare  for  them  their  filthy 


172    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

garments  and  bear  their  children,  and  rear  them  until  they 
are  grown  up.  And  if  you  ask  one  of  them,  he  can  never  tell 
you  where  he  came  from,  for  he  was  conceived  in  one  place, 
born  far  away  from  there,  and  brought  up  in  a  place  still 
farther  off;  ...  like  senseless  animals,  they  are  entirely 
ignorant  of  what  is  proper  and  improper ;  in  their  talk  they  are 
ambiguous  and  full  of  mystery.  Nor  are  they  ever  moved  by 
any  regard  for  religion  or  superstition,  but  burning  with  a 
boundless  passion  for  gold,  they  are  so  changeable  and 
quick  to  wrath,  that  several  times  in  the  same  day  they  grow 
angry  with  their  comrades  without  reason,  and  make  peace 
again  without  receiving  any  satisfaction. 

How  different  our  knowledge  of  Roman  history  would 
be,  did  Roman  historians  more  often  deign  to  draw  such 
pen  pictures. 

In  the  year  433,  after  the  Huns  had  been  settled  in 
Russia  for  more  than  sixty  years,  they  chose  Attila  as 
their  king,  and  under  him  they  step  into  history.  It  is 
characteristic  of  these  barbarian  peoples  that  their  prom- 
inence depends  entirely  upon  the  greatness  of  some  one 
individual  leader.  Thus  it  is  Alaric  who  leads  the  Visi- 
goths into  history,  and  Theodoric  who  leads  the  Ostro- 
goths, and  Attila  who  leads  the  Huns. 

Thus  began  a  period  of  terror  for  Europe,  which  lasted 
no  less  than  twenty  years.  In  451,  Attila  commenced  his 
westward  march.  His  army  has  been  variously  estimated, 
but  it  may  well  have  contained  several  hundred  thousand 
souls.  It  was  indeed  not  so  much  an  army  as  an  aggrega- 
tion of  tribes  and  nations.  We  can  follow  their  wander- 
ings across  the  Rhine,  to  Metz,  to  Rheims,  and  so  to 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     173 

Paris,  which  was  comforted  by  the  assurances  of  Gen6- 
vieve,  but  which  really  escaped  because  of  its  insignifi- 
cance ;  and  so  on  to  Orleans,  where  they  met  with  their 
first  rebuff.  Turning  eastward  again,  they  found  the 
forces  of  Western  civilization  marshaled  against  them 
on  the  Mauriac  Plain,  near  Chcilons-sur-Marne.  There 
the  Huns  and  the  Ostrogoths  met  ^Etius  with  all  the  force 
of  Rome,  including  her  allies,  and  among  them  the  Visi- 
goths. Thus  the  Gothic  nation  was  divided  against 
itself,  and  that  part  of  the  nation  which  was  later  to 
attempt  so  diligently  the  salvation  of  Rome  was  now 
drawn  up  against  her. 

The  battle  was  largely  in  favor  of  the  Romans,  but 
they  failed  to  destroy  Attila  and  his  forces,  who  con- 
tinued the  eastward  march,  which  they  had  begun  before 
the  battle.  This  march  led  them  into  Italy,  where  they 
besieged  Aquileia,  and  after  desperate  resistance  cap- 
tured and  virtually  destroyed  the  town.  Then  followed 
the  capture  of  Milan,  and  Attila's  perpetration  of  his 
grim  jest.  He  found  in  the  palace  a  picture  portraying 
the  Emperor  of  Rome  on  the  throne  and  the  princes  of 
the  East  bowing  before  him.  Attila  did  not  destroy 
the  picture ;  he  merely  caused  the  actors  to  change  places 
so  that  the  throne  was  occupied  by  the  Eastern  ruler, 
while  it  was  the  Emperors  of  Rome  who  were  bowing 
before  him. 

The  projected  attack  upon  the  city  of  Rome  was  pre- 
vented, partly  by  Attila's  own  superstitions,  and  partly 


174    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

by  the  intervention  of  the  venerable  Pope  Leo  (the 
First).  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  even  at  this  early 
date,  it  is  not  the  Emperor  at  Ravenna  but  the  Pope  at 
Rome  who  interests  himself  in  the  temporal  salvation 
of  the  city. 

One  more  great  event  must  be  attributed  at  least  in- 
directly to  Attila,  the  foundation  of  Venice.  Terrified  at 
his  approach,  the  inhabitants  of  the  villages  on  the  main- 
land fled  out  into  the  marshes,  that  ,they  might  escape 
him.  But  they  did  not  go  out  into  the  islands  of  the 
Adriatic,  because  the  ships  of  the  Vandals  would  have 
attacked  them  there.  Thus,  settling  where  there  was  in 
a  sense  neither  land  nor  sea,  they  escaped  the  perils  of 
both. 

Shortly  after  this,  Attila  died,  and  his  people  were  lost 
again  in  the  East ;  but  as  he  passes  out  of  our  picture  we 
must  pay  him  at  least  this  tribute,  that  no  man  who  ever 
lived  has  inspired  so  much  fear  in  the  human  race.  It 
was  not  only  the  terror  of  those  who  knew  him  when  he 
was  alive,  but  the  terror  which  has  radiated  from  him  in 
his  legendary  capacity,  all  the  way  from  Scandinavia 
to  Burgundy.  In  the  legend  of  Burgundy  he  is  relatively 
well  treated.  There  he  is  only  the  harmless  hospitable 
Etzel  of  the  Niebelungenlied.  In  Scandinavia  he  plots 
and  schemes  and  murders  in  order  to  obtain  the  hidden 
treasure.  But  the  fullness  of  his  guilt  is  in  the  Flagellum 
Dei,  the  "  Scourge  of  God,"  with  which  ecclesiastical 
tradition  has  invested  him. 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD    175 

Thus  for  centuries  Attila  lived  on,  in  the  anathemas 
of  the  pulpit,  and  in  the  old-wives'  tales  of  the  nursery, 
while  heretics  and  little  children  were  urged  to  abandon 
the  naughtiness  of  their  ways  in  dread  of  him. 

There  remains  still  one  chapter  in  our  necessary  his- 
torical review  before  we  can  turn  to  Augustine.  In  the 
fourth  century  another  Teutonic  people  had  been  mov- 
ing across  Europe.  This  is  the  nation  of  the  Vandals.  In 
the  year  330,  we  find  them  in  Pannonia ;  in  406,  they  are 
settled  in  Gaul ;  three  years  later  they  are  in  Spain ;  and 
finally,  in  428,  possibly  on  the  invitation  of  the  traitor 
Boniface,  they  enter  Africa,  in  the  month  of  May,  under 
the  leadership  of  their  king,  Gaiseric.  The  Vandals,  like 
the  Visigoths,  were  Arians,  not  Catholics,  but  they  had  a 
religious  zeal  which  the  Visigoths  lacked,  and  which 
caused  them  to  engage  in  proselytism  and  religious  per- 
secution. Their  conquest  of  Africa  was,  therefore,  a  sort 
of  Holy  War.  In  the  year  430,  they  besieged  the  town  of 
Hippo.  We  shall  be  speaking  of  this  siege  again  in  a  few 
moments,  but  our  interest  will  be  inside  rather  than  out- 
side the  walls.  Nine  years  later  they  captured  Carthage, 
and  it  was  there  that  their  king,  Gaiseric,  received  the 
message  of  the  widowed  empress,  Eudoxia,  asking  for 
his  aid.  They  did  not  wait  on  the  order  of  their  going, 
and  the  fleet  arrived  at  Ostia  with  all  possible  speed. 
Then  followed  the  journey  up  the  Tiber,  and  soon  they 
stood  before  the  gates  of  Rome.  Again  the  Pope,  the 
same  great  Leo,  interceded  in  behalf  of  Rome,  and  ob- 


176    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

tained  such  guaranties  as  he  might ;  and  then  the  pillage 
began.  For  fourteen  days  Rome  was  plundered,  and 
then  the  heavily  laden  galleys  sailed  away  on  the  home- 
ward journey  to  Carthage.  It  is  a  melancholy  testimony 
to  the  wealth  of  Rome  that  at  this,  her  third  plundering, 
there  was  still  an  abundance  of  riches  left. 

It  was  necessary  that  we  should  spend  this  time  on 
things  that  may  well  seem  remote  from  our  subject,  in 
order  that  we  might  create  at  once  a  background  and  an 
atmosphere.  If  the  fourth  century  had  been,  in  the 
main,  a  period  of  exultant  triumph  for  Christianity,  this 
first  half  of  the  fifth  century  was  a  period  of  deep  reli- 
gious depression.  The  end  of  the  world  was  coming,  but 
not  in  the  way  the  early  church  had  hoped  for.  There 
was  no  indication  of  the  Millennium,  and  the  clouds  in 
the  sky  did  not  usher  in  triumphantly  the  second  coming 
of  the  Lord ;  and  the  elect  were  not  caught  up  to  be  for- 
ever with  him.  There  were  clouds  enough  in  the  sky  of 
life,  but  they  were  full  of  the  arrows  that  fly  by  night, 
and  of  the  pestilence  that  stalketh  at  noonday.  Human 
life  had  no  peace;  and,  when  there  were  no  wars,  there 
were  rumors  of  war.  Visigoths,  Huns,  Vandals,  —  they 
had  all  threatened  the  peace  of  Rome,  and  two  nations 
had  utterly  despoiled  her.  It  was  the  dark  before  the 
dawn  of  Theodoric,  the  Ostrogoth,  but  men  had  no  good 
reason  to  expect  a  dawn.  The  other  way  of  salvation, 
the  abandonment  of  this  wicked  world  and  the  embrace 
of  monasticism,  was  only  at  its  beginning.  The  majority 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD    177 

of  men  still  stayed  in  the  world,  but  it  was  a  sad  place. 
Above  all  things,  thinking  men  sought  for  an  explana- 
tion ;  they  sought  for  it  with  an  intensity  into  which  we 
in  our  relatively  happy  world  can  scarcely  enter;  an  in- 
tensity that  our  own  world  has,  however,  seen  in  the  per- 
son of  Tolstoy.  They  had  almost  all  the  modern  para- 
phernalia of  thought,  with  the  exception  of  Immanuel 
Kant.  The  unsolvable  problems  of  the  world  are  as  old 
as  the  world  itself,  and  the  material  for  solution  grows 
very  little  through  the  centuries.  There  were  still  the 
same  three  schools  of  thought  that  men  had  used  a  cen- 
tury before.  Mithraism  as  a  religion  was  dead,  but 
Manichseanism,  the  doctrines  of  the  disciples  of  Mani, 
was  its  legitimate  successor.  Neoplatonism  in  its  serenity 
was  practically  unchanged,  as  it  is  in  a  sense  even  to  the 
present  day.  Perhaps  Christianity  alone  had  been  de- 
veloping, but  it  had  as  yet  made  no  great  progress.  These 
were  the  only  available  solutions  to  the  problem  of  life. 
The  character  which  we  have  chosen,  hoping  to  see, 
in  his  inner  life,  the  reflection  of  the  inner  life  of  his  age, 
is  Aurelius  Augustinus,  better  known  to  the  world  as  St. 
Augustine.  I  have  chosen  him,  first,  because  he  was  a 
rounded  man,  drinking  in  to  the  full  the  life  of  his  day, 
and  hence  knowing  human  life  as  only  such  a  one  can ; 
and  secondly,  because  we  are  so  well  informed  regarding 
the  events  of  his  inner  and  his  outer  life.  For  the  form- 
ative period  of  that  life,  the  first  thirty-three  years,  we 
have  one  of  the  greatest  of  all  human  documents,  his 


i;8    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

own  Confessions,  a  book  by  the  love  of  which  we  may 
measure  the  depth  of  our  life. 

Augustine  was  born  at  Tagaste,  in  Numidia,  on  the 
thirteenth  of  November,  354.  His  father,  Patricius,  was 
a  man  of  some  prominence,  a  Decurio  of  the  town,  and  a 
good  example  of  a  cheerful,  healthy,  well-fed  pagan ;  his 
mother,  Monnica,  was  all  that  a  good  mother  should  be, 
and  there  is  no  higher  place  that  any  woman  can  hold. 
If  we  are  at  all  to  appreciate  Augustine,  we  must  follow 
the  story  of  his  life  from  its  beginnings  as  he  tells  it  to  us 
himself.  I  shall  have  occasion  to  quote  frequently  from 
the  Confessions,  and  in  so  doing  I  shall  make  use  of  the 
translation  of  Canon  Bigg.  His  translation  is  so  beauti- 
ful that  it  would  be  folly  to  try  to  rival  it. 

In  the  opening  chapters  of  the  first  book  we  have  a 
most  extraordinary  series  of  passages  regarding  Augus- 
tine's  babyhood.  For  example  (i,  6):  — 

Yet  suffer  me  to  speak  before  Thy  mercy,  me  who  am  but 
dust  and  ashes.  .  .  .  For  what  is  it  that  I  would  say,  O  Lord 
my  God,  save  that  I  know  not  whence  I  came  hither  into  this 
dying  life,  shall  I  call  it,  or  living  death?  And  the  comforts 
of  Thy  pity  received  me,  as  I  have  heard  from  the  father  and 
mother  of  my  flesh,  from  whom  and  in  whom  Thou  didst 
fashion  me  in  time :  for  I  do  not  recollect.  And  so  the  comfort 
of  human  milk  was  ready  for  me.  For  my  mother  and  my  nurses 
did  not  fill  their  own  bosoms,  but  Thou,  O  Lord,  by  their  in- 
strumentality gavest  me  the  food  of  infancy  .  .  .  for  of  a 
truth  all  goods  come  from  Thee,  O  God ;  and  from  my  God  is 
all  my  health.  This  I  learned  afterwards,  when  Thou  didst 
call  loudly  to  me  by  all  Thy  benefits,  within  me  and  without. 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE   CITY  OF  GOD    179 

For  in  those  days  I  could  but  suck  and  feel  pleasure  and  weep 
at  fleshly  pain,  nothing  more.  Afterwards  I  began  also  to 
smile,  at  first  in  sleep,  then  awake.  For  this  I  have  been  told 
and  believe,  since  I  see  other  babies  do  the  same.  But  I  do  not 
recollect  how  it  was  with  myself. 

And  from  this  quaint  touch  he  turns  and  cries,  not  as 
an  inquiring  metaphysician,  but  as  a  human  being  long- 
ing for  knowledge:  — 

Tell  me,  I  beseech  Thee,  O  God  .  .  .  tell  me  whether  an- 
other life  of  mine  died  before  my  infancy  began  or  only  that 
which  I  spent  in  the  womb  of  my  mother?  .  .  .  Even  before 
this,  what  was  there,  O  my  God?  —  Was  I  anywhere?  Was  I 
any  one?  .  .  .  Whence  came  so  wondrous  a  creature  but 
from  Thee,  O  Lord?  Can  any  one  make  himself?  Can  the 
stream  of  being  and  of  life  that  runs  into  us  derive  from  any 
other  fountain?  No;  Thou  hast  made  us,  O  Lord,  whose 
being  and  whose  life  are  ever  the  same,  because  Thou  art  no- 
thing else  than  supreme  being,  supreme  life.  .  .  .  How  many 
days  of  mine  and  of  my  father's  have  passed  through  Thy  to- 
day, from  Thy  eternity  received  their  mode  of  being  and 
existed  after  their  fashion! 

One  of  the  extraordinary  characteristics  of  the  Con- 
fessions is  the  ease  of  transition.  We  are  forever  chang- 
ing altitude,  now  up,  now  down,  but  we  feel  no  shock  of 
abrupt  change,  and  yet  in  the  text  itself  there  are  no  at- 
tempts at  artificial  bridges  of  transition.  The  processes 
of  accommodation  are  in  the  writer  himself,  because  he  is 
following  his  own  moods;  and  just  because  he  is  able  to 
express  himself  with  absolute  naturalness,  the  reader 
shares  his  moods,  and  thus  makes  all  the  changes,  not  as 


i8o    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

a  spectator,  but  as  a  man  of  like  passions  with  Augustine, 
living  out  with  him  and  in  himself  the  experiences  de- 
scribed for  him.  Thus,  a  chapter  or  two  later,  we  find  it 
quite  natural  that  Augustine  should  be  talking  simply 
of  the  processes  of  education,  beginning  with  the  baby's 
attempts  to  learn  to  speak  (i,  8) :  — 

Thus  gradually  I  acquired  a  store  of  words  arranged  in  sen- 
tences, and  by  frequent  repetitions,  I  came  to  perceive  of 
what  things  they  were  the  symbols,  and  by  training  my  mouth 
to  their  utterance,  I  gained  the  power  of  verbal  expression. 
So  I  exchanged  with  those  about  me  the  symbols  of  meaning, 
and  launched  out  upon  the  stormy  sea  of  human  fellowship, 
while  still  depending  upon  the  authority  of  parents  and  the 
direction  of  elders. 

His  experience  of  studying  the  classics  is  that  of  many 
another  boy  (i,  13) :  — 

But  even  now  I  cannot  understand  why  I  hated  Greek, 
which  I  was  taught  in  my  earliest  school-days.  For  I  loved 
Latin  —  the  literature,  I  mean,  not  the  grammar.  For  the 
first  lessons  of  the  Latin  schools,  in  which  one  learns  to  read, 
write,  and  multiply,  I  thought  as  dull  and  penal  as  Greek. 

And  again  (i,  14) :  — 

Why  did  I  hate  my  Greek  literature,  which  was  full  of  such 
songs?  For  Homer  also  weaves  these  fables  with  a  skillful 
hand,  nor  is  any  vanity  so  delightful  as  his.  Yet  he  was  dis- 
tasteful to  me  as  a  boy,  and  so,  I  think,  would  Virgil  be  to 
Greek  boys,  if  they  were  compelled  to  learn  him  in  the  same 
way,  that  is  to  say,  by  dint  of  drudgery. 

It  is  this  extraordinary  humanity  which  characterized 
the  real  Augustine  throughout  all  his  life.  There  is  the 


'AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     181 

marvelous  chapter  on  the  blessings  of  boyhood,  the  sheer 
physical  joy  of  being  a  boy  (i,  20) :  — 

O  Lord,  my  God,  Thou  best  and  most  excellent  Creator  and 
Ruler  of  the  world,  I  should  owe  Thee  thanks,  even  though 
Thou  hadst  wished  that  I  should  never  be  more  than  a  boy. 
For  I  was,  I  was  alive,  I  could  feel,  I  could  guard  my  person- 
ality, the  imprint  of  that  mysterious  unity  from  which  my 
being  was  derived  —  surely  every  part  of  such  a  creature  calls 
for  wonder  and  praise.  But  all  this  is  the  bounty  of  my  God, 
and  not  my  own,  and  all  these  capacities  are  good,  and  I  am 
the  sum  of  them.  Truly,  then,  He  who  made  me  is  good  and 
very  good,  and  to  Him  will  I  give  loud  thanks  for  all  the  good 
that  belonged  to  me  even  as  a  boy. 

In  the  second  book  we  pass  to  his  youth,  that  youth 
which  was  to  mean  so  much  to  his  later  life.  And  if  he 
seems  to  brood  over  the  ill-spent  years  more  than  we 
feel  they  deserve,  we  should  remember  that  we  know 
Monnica  only  through  him ;  and  the  pain  that  arose  from 
the  thought  of  the  grief  which  he  had  caused  her  is  his 
own  pain,  that  incomparable  pain  of  having  caused  sor- 
row to  her  who  bore  us.  And  even  if  in  this  mood  the 
stealing  of  apples  seems  a  proof  of  original  sin,  there  is  a 
wonderful  charm  in  the  psychological  analysis  (n,  4) : 
1 '  For  I  stole  what  I  had  in  plenty,  and  much  better.  What 
I  wanted  to  enjoy  was  not  the  thing  I  stole,  but  the 
actual  sin  of  theft." 

In  371,  when  he  was  seventeen,  his  father,  "who  was 
but  a  poor  burgess  —  with  a  spirit  beyond  his  purse" 
(n,  3) ,  managed  to  afford  the  expense  of  sending  him  to 


182    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Carthage  to  study  to  become  a  rhetorician,  to  Carthage 
" where  debauchery  bubbled  like  a  frying-pan"  (in,  i) 
and  where  he  sought  something  to  love,  "  loving  the  idee 
of  love,  and  hating  the  tranquil  path  where  there  are  nc 
mousetraps."  It  was  in  Carthage  that  he  "  polluted  the 
brook  of  friendship  with  the  sewage  of  lust." 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  stage  bewitched  him 
"Why,"  he  cries  (in,  2),  "do  men  desire  to  be  saddenec 
by  the  representations  of  tragic  misfortunes  which  the} 
do  not  in  the  least  desire  to  suffer?  "  "  Yet  the  spectato: 
does  desire  to  be  saddened  by  them,  and  the  sadness  ii 
the  very  pleasure  that  he  seeks.  Surely  this  is  wre tehee 
folly."  We  need  no  more  than  this  to  see  why  Augustint 
did  not  love  Greek.  We  are  very  far  from  the  Aristote 
lian  "Catharsis"  of  emotion  by  the  exhibition  of  pas 
sion. 

It  was  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  this  modest,  intro 
spective  youth  would  be  popular  with  his  fellow  stu 
dents. 

I  would  take  no  part  [he  says  (in,  3)]  in  the  wild  doing 
of  the  "Wreckers,"  a  cruel  and  devilish  name,  which  wa 
looked  upon  as  the  stamp  of  the  best  set.  I  lived  amongs 
them,  feeling  a  kind  of  impudent  shame,  because  I  could  no 
keep  pace  with  them.  I  went  about  with  them,  and  of  some  c 
them  I  made  friends ;  yet  I  always  disliked  their  way  of  goin 
on,  their  "wreckings,"  their  wanton  attacks  upon  the  shynes 
of  freshmen,  and  the  unprovoked  affronts  with  which  the 
carried  on  their  malignant  amusement.  Nothing  could  b 
more  like  the  conduct  of  devils,  and  what  name  could  b 
fitter  for  them  than  "Wreckers"? 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     183 

Meantime  he  was  absorbed  in  his  work,  in  no  mechan- 
ical spirit,  but  with  an  ambition  for  outward  success, 
when  he  chanced  upon  Cicero's  treatise  Hortensius,  and 
the  rhetoric  was  suddenly  forgotten  in  the  message  of 
the  book  itself  (in,  4) :  — 

Among  such  comrades,  in  those  years  of  indiscretion,  I  was 
studying  books  of  rhetoric,  wherein  I  desired  to  excel,  seeking 
through  the  joys  of  vanity  a  flashy  and  reprobate  success,  and 
in  the  usual  course  I  had  entered  upon  a  book  by  one  Cicero, 
whose  tongue  all  men  admire  though  not  his  heart.  It  was  the 
Hortensius,  a  treatise  in  which  he  extols  the  study  of  philoso- 
phy. That  book  changed  my  mind,  changed  my  very  prayers 
to  Thee,  O  Lord,  and  altered  my  wishes  and  aspirations.  From 
that  moment  vain  hopes  ceased  to  charm,  and  with  a  strange 
and  heartfelt  passion  I  began  to  long  for  the  immortality  of 
wisdom.  Thenceforth  began  my  upward  way  and  my  return 
towards  Thee.  .  .  .  How  did  I  burn,  O  my  God,  how  did  I 
burn  to  soar  away  from  earth  to  Thee. 

Thus  Augustine  became  a  philosopher  and  began  his 
quest  of  the  truth,  a  quest  which  occupied  more  than 
sixteen  years  of  his  life,  and  led  him  through  the  whole 
circle  of  ancient  religious  thought.  The  great  questions, 
Who  am  I?  Why  am  I?  filled  his  mind  and  would  not 
leave  him.  Again  and  again  he  tried  in  vain  to  abandon 
the  search. 

As  the  first  step  in  this  search,  he  fell  among  the  Man- 
ichees,  and  became  an  auditor  of  their  doctrines.  The 
rest  of  the  third  book,  all  of  the  fourth,  and  a  portion  of 
the  fifth,  are  devoted  to  a  refutation  of  Manichaeanism, 
a  refutation  which  was  by  no  means  difficult.  In  375, 


184    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  he  became  a  teacher  of  rhetoric 
in  his  own  native  town  of  Tagaste,  and  afterwards  a 
teacher  of  legal  rhetoric  at  Carthage.  Of  his  life  in  Car- 
thage he  says  (iv,  2) :  "In  these  years  I  lived  with  one 
not  joined  to  me  in  lawful  wedlock,  upon  whom  my  vaga- 
bond foolish  passion  had  settled,  yet  with  but  one,  and  I 
was  faithful  to  her."  These  were  anxious  years  for  Mon- 
nica,  but  her  faith  did  not  waver.  Once  she  dreamed 
that  she  was  standing  alone,  when  some  one  came  and 
stood  beside  her,  and  looking  up  she  saw  that  it  was  her 
son.  She  interpreted  her  dream  to  mean  that  Augustine 
would  become  a  Christian.  He  himself  accepted  the 
dream,  but  said  that  they  would  be  together  in  belief, 
when  she  herself  became  a  Manichee.  Then  she  an- 
swered, without  a  moment's  hesitation  (in,  1 1) :  "  No,  he 
did  not  say  where  he  is,  you  will  be,  but  where  you  are, 
he  will  be" ;  an  answer  at  which  Augustine  confesses  him- 
self more  impressed  than  at  the  dream  itself.  There  is, 
too,  such  a  modern  note,  but  modern  only  because  it  is 
eternal,  in  the  bishop's  words  (in,  12):  "It  cannot  be 
that  the  son  of  these  tears  should  be  lost." 

In  383,  after  eight  years  of  teaching  in  Africa,  and 
being  now  twenty-nine  years  of  age,  he  received  a  call  to 
a  professorship  at  Rome.  The  boisterousness  of  the  stu- 
dents at  Carthage,  the  "Wreckers,"  with  whom  he  had 
never  sympathized,  made  him  ready  to  go. 

...  At  Carthage  [he  says  (v,  8)],  there  is  a  disgraceful  li- 
cense of  disorder  along  the  students.  They  burst  shamelessly 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     185 

into  the  room,  and  with  the  demeanor  of  madmen  break  up 
the  discipline  which  the  teacher  has  established  for  the  better 
progress  of  his  pupils.  Many  things  they  will  do  with  the  ut- 
most effrontery  which  are  real  outrages,  punishable  by  law,  if 
it  were  not  that  custom  has  sanctioned  them,  a  custom  which 
proves  them  the  more  unhappy,  because  it  allows  them  to  do 
what  Thy  eternal  law  never  will  allow.  And  they  think  that 
they  act  thus  with  impunity,  though  the  very  blindness  with 
which  they  act  is  their  punishment,  and  they  suffer  infinitely 
more  harm  than  they  inflict.  So  it  came  to  pass,  that,  as  a 
teacher,  I  was  compelled  to  endure  in  others  the  evil  habits 
which,  as  a  student,  I  had  refused  to  adopt;  and  on  this 
account  I  was  glad  to  remove  to  a  place  where,  as  I  was 
assured  by  men  who  knew,  such  conduct  was  not  tolerated. 

His  mother  was  opposed  to  his  going  to  Rome,  but  by 
a  disgraceful  ruse  he  deceived  her  and  set  sail.  This  is 
one  of  the  few  passages  where  we  feel  a  curious  hardness, 
which  may  in  its  turn  explain  some  of  his  theological 
views.  "Thus  I  lied  to  my  mother,  and  such  a  mother! " 
But  then  the  thought  comforts  him  that  in  going  to 
Rome  he  had  been  unwittingly  going  to  be  converted 
(v,  8):- 

And  what  was  she  beseeching  of  Thee,  O  my  God,  with  all 
these  tears,  but  that  Thou  wouldst  prevent  me  from  sailing? 
But  Thou,  in  Thy  hidden  wisdom,  didst  grant  the  substance 
of  her  desire,  yet  refuse  the  thing  she  prayed  for,  in  order  that 
thou  mightest  effect  in  me  what  she  was  ever  praying  for. 

And  then,  with  a  touch  reminiscent  of  the  -^Eneid :  — 

The  wind  blew  and  filled  our  sails,  and  the  shore  receded 
from  our  gaze.  There  was  she  in  the  morning,  with  wild  sor- 
row, besieging  Thine  ears  with  complaints  and  sighs  which 


186    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Thou  didst  not  regard,  for  by  my  desires  Thou  wast  drawing 
me  to  the  place  where  I  should  bury  my  desires  and  her  carnal 
yearning  was  being  chastened  by  the  scourge  of  grief.  For  she 
loved  to  keep  me  with  her,  as  mothers  are  wont,  yes,  far  more 
than  most  mothers,  and  she  knew  not  what  joy  Thou  wert 
preparing  for  her  out  of  my  desertion. 

The  whole  passage  is  a  curious  mixture  of  the  theolo- 
gian and  the  loving  son,  and  it  is  only  fair  to  add  that 
this  is  one  of  the  few  passages  in  the  Confessions  where 
the  theologian  dominates  the  man. 

But  his  Roman  experiences  were  not  successful.  He 
describes  them  to  us,  with  admirable  frankness  (v,  12) : 

I  began  diligently  to  apply  myself  to  the  object  that  had 
brought  me  to  Rome,  the  teaching  of  the  art  of  rhetoric.  And 
first  I  gathered  at  my  house  a  little  company  of  scholars,  to 
whom  and  by  whom  I  was  beginning  to  be  known ;  when,  lo,  I 
discovered  that  there  were  vexations  at  Rome  from  which  I 
had  been  free  in  Africa.  It  was  true,  as  appeared,  that  young 
profligates  did  not  practice  "wreckings"  here,  but  "all  of  a 
sudden,"  said  my  friends,  "a  number  of  them  will  enter  into  a 
plot  to  escape  paying  their  fees,  and  march  off  to  another 
teacher,"  breaking  their  faith  and  despising  justice  for  love  of 
money. 

And  so  [he  continues  (v,  13)],  when  the  Milanese  sent  to 
Rome,  requesting  the  Prefect  of  the  city  to  provide  them  with 
a  teacher  of  Rhetoric,  and  to  furnish  him  for  the  journey  at 
the  public  expenses,  I  made  application,  through  those  very 
Manichaean  fanatics,  from  whom  my  going  was  to  detach  me, 
though  neither  they  nor  I  foresaw  this  result,  to  Symmachus, 
who  was  the  Prefect,  desiring  him  that  upon  due  examination, 
I  might  have  the  post.  So  I  came  to  Milan,  where  I  found  the 
Bishop  Ambrose. 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     187 

I  have  gone  thus  into  detail  in  recounting  the  his- 
tory of  Augustine's  life  up  to  the  turning-point,  for  two 
reasons.  I  have  wanted  you  to  know  him  as  the  marvel- 
ously  human  character  that  he  is,  and  not  as  the  theolo- 
gian, pure  and  simple,  and  in  the  second  place,  it  seemed 
worth  while  to  contrast  the  quiet  tenor  of  his  outward 
life  with  the  events  of  his  day.  We  think  of  these  years 
as  anything  but  peaceful.  In  the  year  that  Augustine 
was  born,  Gallus  was  being  entrapped  and  put  to  death 
at  Pola,  and  Julian  imprisoned  at  Milan.  While  Augus- 
tine was  learning  to  talk  and  read,  the  whole  tragedy  of 
Julian's  life  was  being  enacted.  When  he  began  to  study 
at  Carthage,  the  Huns  were  breaking  into  Russia ;  in  the 
year  when  he  moved  to  Rome,  the  Emperor  Gratian 
was  killed ;  and  now  when  he  reaches  Milan,  Ambrose  is 
in  the  midst  of  his  controversy  with  Justina. 

Next  to  his  relationship  to  his  mother,  his  relation  to 
Ambrose  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  Augustine's  life. 

So  I  came  to  Milan  [he  says  (v,  13)],  where  I  found  the 
Bishop  Ambrose,  Thy  godly  servant,  known  throughout  the 
world  as  one  of  the  best  of  men,  whose  eloquent  discourses 
were  at  that  time  diligently  supplying  to  Thy  people  the  fat- 
ness of  Thy  wheat,  the  gladness  of  Thy  oil,  and  the  sober  in- 
toxication of  Thy  wine.  By  Thee  was  I  led  blindly  to  him, 
that  by  him  I  might  be  led  with  open  arms  to  Thee.  That 
man  of  God  received  me  as  a  father,  and  welcomed  the  stranger 
like  a  true  bishop.  And  I  began  to  love  him,  not  at  first  as  a 
teacher  of  the  truth,  which  I  despaired  of  finding  in  Thy 
church,  but  as  a  fellow  creature  who  was  kind  to  me.  I  lis- 
tened attentively  to  his  sermons,  not  with  the  right  attitude 


188     RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

of  mind,  but  criticizing  his  eloquence,  — whether  it  was  equal 
to  his  reputation,  whether  its  stream  was  broader  or  narrower 
than  men  reported.  Thus  I  hung  eagerly  upon  his  expressions, 
while  as  regards  his  subject,  I  remained  a  cool  and  contemptu- 
ous looker-on,  delighted  only  with  the  charm  of  his  style. 

We  see  his  love  of  Ambrose  growing  as  we  turn  the 
pages. 

I  could  not  ask  him  what  I  wanted,  as  I  wanted,  because 
the  shoals  of  busy  people,  to  whose  infirmities  he  ministered, 
came  between  me  and  his  ear  and  lips.  And  in  the  few  mo- 
ments when  he  was  not  thus  surrounded,  he  was  refreshing 
either  his  body  with  needful  food,  or  his  mind  with  reading.  .  . . 
Often  when  we  attended  (for  the  door  was  open  to  all,  and  no 
one  was  announced),  we  saw  him  reading  silently,  but  never 
otherwise,  and  often  sitting  for  some  time  without  speaking 
(for  who  would  presume  to  trouble  one  so  occupied?),  we  went 
away  again. 

It  is  well  for  us  to  remember  this  picture  of  the  silent 
scholar  and  the  timid  spectator,  when  we  think  of  Am- 
brose only  as  the  proud  churchman  who  humbled  Theo- 
dosius,  and  of  Augustine  as  the  theologian  of  the  sinful- 
ness  of  infants. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  he  and  some  of  his  friends  con- 
templated a  peaceful  life  away  from  the  crowd  (vi,  14) : — 

With  a  band  of  friends  I  had  been  discussing  and  deploring 
the  stormy  anxieties  of  human  life,  and  by  this  time  we  had 
almost  decided  to  live  a  peaceful  life  away  from  the  crowd. 
Peace  we  thought  we  might  obtain  by  clubbing  together 
whatever  means  we  possessed,  and  so  making  one  common 
stock;  in  the  sincerity  of  friendship  there  was  to  be  no  mine  or 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD    189 

thine,  but  all  were  to  have  one  purse  and  the  whole  was  to  be- 
long to  each  and  all.  We  thought  we  might  reckon  some  ten 
members  of  the  fraternity,  of  whom  some  were  very  wealthy, 
especially  Romanianus,  my  fellow  townsman,  whom  at  this 
time  pressing  anxieties  of  business  had  brought  up  to  the 
Bounty  Office.  From  childhood  he  had  been  one  of  my  near- 
est friends.  He  was  the  warmest  advocate  of  our  project,  and 
his  words  carried  great  weight,  because  his  wealth  was  much 
greater  than  that  of  the  others.  We  had  resolved  that  each 
year  two  of  us  should  be  managers,  and  provide  all  that  was 
needful,  while  the  others  enjoyed  complete  leisure.  But  as 
soon  as  we  began  to^ask  whether  the  wives,  whom  some  al- 
ready had,  and  I  hoped  to  have,  would  tolerate  this,  our  excel- 
lent plan  burst  to  pieces  in  our  hands,  and  was  cast  aside  like 
a  broken  thing. 

In  these  months  the  hold  of  Manichaeanism  was 
broken,  but  as  its  coarse  dualism  became  more  and  more 
repugnant  to  him,  the  doctrines  of  Neoplatonism  made  a 
stronger  and  stronger  appeal;  and  so  he  begins  a  com- 
parative study  of  Neoplatonism  and  Christianity.  We 
have  already  anticipated  that  study  in  our  chapter  on 
the  origins  of  Christianity,  and  we  need  not  go  into  it 
again.  It  was  the  humility  of  Christianity  and  its  per- 
sonal note,  which  made  their  strong  appeal.  Of  Neopla- 
tonism he  says  (vn,  20) :  "  Where  was  that  charity  which 
buildeth  upon  the  foundation  of  humility?  "  And  again : 
"No  one  there  [in  Neoplatonism]  hearkens  to  Him  that 
calleth,  'Come  unto  me  all  ye  that  labour.'  " 

These  were  the  days  when  Ambrose  was  holding  the 
basilica  against  Justina,  and  teaching  the  people  the 
antiphonal  chants  (ix,  7) :  —  j 


RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

The  people  of  God  were  keeping  ward  in  the  church,  ready 
to  die  with  Thy  servant,  their  Bishop.  Among  them  was  my 
mother,  living  unto  prayer,  and  bearing  a  chief  part  in  that 
anxious  watch.  Even  I  myself,  though  as  yet  untouched  by 
the  fire  of  Thy  spirit,  shared  in  the  general  alarm  and  distrac- 
tion. Then  it  was  that  the  custom  arose  of  singing  hymns  and 
psalms,  after  the  use  of  the  Eastern  provinces,  to  save  the  peo- 
ple from  being  utterly  worn  out  by  their  long  and  sorrowful 
vigils. 

His  own  struggles  grow  more  and  more  intense  until 
the  summit  of  his  anguish  is  reached  one  memorable 
day,  when  he  went  out  into  the  garden  attached  to  his 
lodgings  to  meditate  and  pray.  Then  occurred  one  of 
those  strange  hearings  of  voices,  which  are  so  character- 
istic of  those  days,  occurring  as  the  stories  do  in  the  lives 
of  Alaric,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  and  many  others. 

Lo,  I  heard  a  voice  [vm,  12]  from  a  neighboring  house.  It 
seemed  as  if  some  boy  or  girl,  I  knew  not  which,  was  repeating 
in  a  kind  of  chant  the  words,  "Take  and  read,  take  and  read." 
Immediately,  with  changed  countenance,  I  began  to  think  in- 
tently whether  there  was  any  kind  of  game  in  which  children 
sang  those  words;  but  I  could  not  recollect  that  I  had  ever 
heard  them.  I  stemmed  the  rush  of  tears  and  rose  to  my  feet; 
for  I  could  not  think  but  that  it  was  a  divine  command  to 
open  the  Bible  and  read  the  first  passage  I  lighted  upon.  .  .  . 
I  ran  back  to  the  place  where  Alypius  was  sitting ;  for  when  I 
quitted  him  I  had  left  the  volume  of  the  Apostle  lying  there. 
I  caught  it  up  and  opened  it,  and  read  in  silence  the  passage 
on  which  my  eyes  first  fell,  "Not  in  rioting  and  drunkenness, 
not  in  chambering  and  wantonness,  not  in  strife  and  envying; 
but  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  not  provision 
for  the  flesh  to  fulfill  the  lusts  thereof."  No  further  would  I 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     191 

read,  nor  was  it  necessary.  As  I  reached  the  end  of  the  sen- 
tence, the  light  of  peace  seemed  to  be  shed  upon  my  heart, 
and  every  shadow  of  doubt  melted  away. 

Thereupon  he  decided  to  resign  his  professorship  of 
rhetoric;  but  with  a  laudable  desire  to  escape  publicity, 
he  waited  until  the  vintage  holidays  before  carrying  out 
his  resolve.  Then  follows  the  retreat  to  the  country- 
house  of  his  friend  Verecundus,  at  Cassicium,  until  in 
the  next  year  (387)  at  Easter,  he  was  baptized  by  Am- 
brose at  Milan.  Then,  accompanied  by  Monnica,  he  set 
out  to  return  to  Africa. 

As  the  day  drew  near  [ix,  10]  on  which  she  was  to  depart 
from  this  life,  Thou  knewest  it  though  we  did  not,  it  fell  out, 
as  I  believe,  through  the  secret  workings  of  Thy  providence, 
that  she  and  I  were  leaning  by  ourselves  on  the  ledge  of  a  win- 
dow, from  which  we  looked  down  on  the  garden  of  our  house. 
Yonder  it  was  in  Ostia  by  Tiber,  where,  away  from  the  crowd, 
fatigued  by  the  long  journey  from  Milan,  we  were  recruiting 
ourselves  for  the  sea  voyage.  Sweet  was  the  converse  we  held 
together,  as  forgetting  those  things  which  were  behind,  and 
reaching  forth  unto  those  things  which  were  before,  we  asked 
ourselves  in  the  presence  of  Thee,  the  Truth,  what  will  be  the 
manner  of  that  eternal  life  of  the  saints,  which  eye  hath  not 
seen,  nor  ear  heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  into  the  heart  of 
man. 

The  picture  is  beautiful,  but  not  the  least  beautiful 
part  is  its  framework,  because  it  is  so  typically  Italian, 
with  its  standing  by  the  window,  so  thoroughly  modern 
in  touch. 

Within  five  days  Monnica  was  " seized  by  a  fever/' 


192    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

and  as  she  lay  dying,  far  from  her  native  land  of  Africa, 
yet  on  the  point  of  setting  sail  for  home,  she  said :  —    j 

Lay  this  body  where  you  will,  and  be  not  anxious  about  it. 
Only  I  beseech  you  remember  me  at  the  altar  of  God,  where- 
ever  you  are.  .  .  .  Nothing  is  far  from  God.  There  is  no  fear 
that  at  the  end  of  the  world  He  will  not  know  whence  to 
summon  me. 

And  so  we  part  with  the  [Confessions,  repeating  Augus- 
tine's own  prayer  (ix,  13) :  — 

May  she  rest  in  peace,  therefore,  with  her  husband,  her 
first  and  only  husband,  whom  she  obeyed,  bringing  forth  fruit 
unto  Thee  with  patience,  that  she  might  gain  him  also  unto 
Thee.  And  do  Thou  inspire,  O  Lord  my  God,  do  Thou  inspire 
Thy  servants,  my  brethren,  Thy  sons,  my  masters,  whom  I 
serve  with  heart  and  voice  and  pen,  that  whoso  reads  these 
pages  may  remember  before  Thy  altar  Monnica,  Thy  hand- 
maid, and  Patricius,  once  her  husband,  through  whose  flesh 
Thou  didst  bring  me  into  this  life,  I  know  not  how.  Let  them 
remember  with  godly  love  those  who  were  my  parents  in  this 
transitory  life,  those  who  were  my  brethren  under  Thee,  our 
Father,  in  the  Catholic  mother,  those  who  are  my  fellow  citi- 
zens in  the  Eternal  Jerusalem,  for  which  Thy  people  of  pil- 
grims yearn  from  their  going-out  until  their  coming  home 
again.  So  shall  her  dying  request- be  granted  her  in  richer 
abundance  by  the  prayers  of  many  through  my  Confessions 
rather  than  through  my  prayers. 

For  the  remaining  forty-three  years  of  Augustine's 
life  (for  he  died  at  the  age  of  seventy-six),  we  have  no 
such  wealth  of  material,  but  the  main  facts  are  clear. 
He  returned  to  Africa  immediately,  and  during  the  next 
ten  years  came  the  actual  writing  of  the  Confessions.  In 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     193 

391,  he  was  made  Presbyter  of  Hippo,  and  then  Bishop, 
an  office  which  he  held  for  thirty-four  years.  These 
years  of  his  bishopric  were  years  of  great  theological 
productivity,  in  which  so  many  streams  of  later  theolo- 
gical discussion  have  their  rise,  that  the  most  diverse 
sects  find  to  their  chagrin  that  they  meet  in  him.  Fortu- 
nately we  have  no  cause  to  go  into  these  things,  and  we 
can  but  quote  Gibbon :  "  My  personal  acquaintance  with 
the  Bishop  of  Hippo  does  not  extend  beyond  the  Con- 
fessions and  the  City  of  God.1' 

In  430,  while  the  Vandals  were  besieging  Hippo,  the 
aged  Bishop,  knowing  that  his  life  was  soon  to  end,  and 
true  to  his  principle  that,  when  possible,  a  man  should 
spend  the  closing  days  of  his  life  in  penitence,  retired  to 
his  room  and  for  ten  days  meditated  upon  the  peniten- 
tial psalms  of  David.  Thus  died  Augustine. 

If  the  Confessions  have  taught  us  to  know  the  man 
personally,  it  is  the  City  of  God  which  brings  him  into 
our  story,  and  connects  him  with  the  general  history  of 
Roman  religious  consciousness. 

We  have  seen  that  Christianity  came  into  the  world 
as  a  religion  of  the  Jews,  we  have  also  seen  that  Paul 
extended  it  to  include  the  Gentiles.  In  a  word,  it  became 
coterminal  with  the  Roman  Empire.  When  under  Con- 
stantine  it  became  the  religion  of  the  Roman  state,  this 
national  idea  of  Christianity  was  emphasized  still  more 
strongly.  Therefore,  in  the  minds  of  the  great  majority 
of  those  who  lived  in  the  last  half  of  the  fourth  century 


194    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

and  in  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century,  Christianity  was 
a  national  religion.  Such  instincts  of  patriotism  as  were 
still  left  to  them  attempted  to  exercise  themselves  under 
Christian  forms.  But  there  were  great  difficulties  in 
finding  suitable  forms,  and  the  instinct  of  patriotism 
found  expression  much  more  readily  in  the  old  religion 
which  was  now  prohibited. 

All  that  was  necessary  to  produce  a  revival  of  the  old 
religion  was  that  the  national  consciousness  should  re- 
ceive a  severe  shock.  Such  a  shock  it  did  receive  in  the 
capture  of  Rome  by  the  Visigoths.  After  remaining  un- 
conquered  for  eight  hundred  years,  Rome  had  been 
forced  to  open  her  gates  to  the  enemy.  For  seven  hun- 
dred of  these  years  Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus  had  pro- 
tected her  successfully ;  and  now,  within  a  century  of  the 
acceptance  of  the  Christian  God,  she  had  fallen.  Chris- 
tianity, therefore,  as  a  national  religion  was  a  failure. 

And  with  the  fall  of  Rome,  patriotism  itself  received 
a  stupendous  impulse,  so  that  once  again  men  felt  that 
religion  was  to  be  judged  by  its  practical  effects  on  the 
nation.  Then  it  was  that  Augustine,  questioned  by  some 
converts,  conceived  the  idea  of  writing  a  treatise  on  The 
City  of  God.  As  often  happens  when  men  attempt  very 
great  things,  the  conception  is  better  than  the  execution ; 
and  in  this  case  the  title  is  much  more  inspiring  than  the 
work  itself.  It  would,  indeed,  be  an  easy  matter  to  prove 
that  it  was  the  Romans  themselves,  and  not  their  gods, 
who  had  been  the  defenders  of  Rome  during  these  centu- 


AUGUSTINE  AND  THE  CITY  OF  GOD     195 

ries,  and  now  in  the  moment  of  weakness  it  was  not  God, 
but  the  Romans,  who  had  failed.  But  this  is  not  suffi- 
cient, nor  is  it  the  original  feature  of  the  work.  Many 
others  before  Augustine,  for  example,  Ambrose,  had 
argued  after  this  fashion. 

But  his  thought  goes  infinitely  higher.  Christianity 
is  not  a  national  religion.  Its  primary  object  is  not  the 
glory  and  the  power  of  the  city  of  Rome.  But  there  are 
two  cities  forever  separate:  the  city  of  Rome,  the  city 
of  the  world,  and  the  city  of  God,  "cuius  fundamenta 
sunt  in  montibus  sacris." 

Christianity  is  not  dependent  on  any  earthly  city.  Its 
duration  is  not  contemporaneous  with  Rome.  Rome 
may  fall,  but  the  city  of  God  abideth  forever.  This  was 
the  answer  of  Augustine  to  those  who  saw  in  the  capture 
of  Rome  by  the  Visigoths  the  proof  of  the  failure  of 
Christianity.  It  was  not  said  in  any  spirit  of  hostility 
to  Rome ;  nay,  the  whole  line  of  thought  was  suggested 
and  brought  into  being  by  a  great  love  of  that  city.  It 
was  also,  if  you  will,  a  strange  prophecy  of  the  ultimate 
separation  of  church  and  state,  a  free  church  in  a  free 
state.  But  for  the  present  it  was  one  of  those  grand  ideas 
which  are  so  much  in  advance  of  their  time  that  they 
lie  dormant  for  centuries.  By  the  strange  vicissitudes 
of  history  the  repeated  humiliation  of  Rome  was  to  make 
her  par  excellence  the  sacred  city  of  the  Western  world. 
For  a  millennium  and  a  half  the  city  of  Rome  was  to  be- 
come more  and  more  synonymous  in  men's  minds  with 


196    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  City  of  God.  From  this  fact  were  to  come  great 
gains  to  civilization  and  religion.  And  it  would  not  be  at 
all  wonderful  if  even  in  our  own  day  Rome  should  re- 
cover the  universality  of  her  dominion.  But  this  is 
possible  only  along  the  line,  which  Augustine  has  pointed 
out,  that  it  is  the  spiritual  city,  the  City  of  God,  which 
abideth  forever. 


CHAPTER  VII 

BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS :  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE 
SALVATION  OF  ANCIENT  CULTURE 

CHRISTIANITY  had  stood  the  shock  of  the  capture  of 
Rome.  It  was  not  only  the  capture  by  the  Visigoths, 
while  Augustine  was  still  alive ;  but  after  his  death  had 
come  the  Vandals.  The  new  religion  might  therefore 
feel  itself  secure,  at  least  in  name.  Its  foes  from  hence- 
forth were  to  be  those  of  its  own  household.  But  with 
ancient  culture  the  problem  was  not  so  simple.  A  cen- 
tury before,  Julian,  with  a  farsightedness  for  which  he 
has  not  always  been  given  credit,  had  divined  the  prob- 
lem of  the  difficulty  of  conserving  ancient  culture.  From 
his  standpoint  culture  and  religion  were  inseparable; 
hence  he  tried,  on  the  one  hand,  to  restore  ancient  re- 
ligion, and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  preserve  ancient  cul- 
ture by  prohibiting  the  teaching  of  pagan  literature  by 
Christians.  His  solution  was  a  failure,  but  he  deserves 
the  credit  of  having  realized  the  problem.  During  the 
century  since  Julian's  death,  we  find  no  further  attempt 
made  to  solve  the  difficulty.  Yet,  like  many  difficult 
problems,  it  was  growing  more  difficult  with  every  year 
of  delay.  With  the  beginning  of  the  barbarian  invasions 
a  new  kind  of  destructive  agency  commenced  its  work. 
Hitherto  this  ancient  culture  had  suffered  merely  by 


198    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

neglect,  by  a  negative  force,  but  now  it  is  menaced  by 
the  positive  force  of  hostile  destruction. 

Fortunately,  at  the  close  of  the  fifth  century  and  at 
the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  the  period  with  which 
we  are  to  deal  in  this  chapter,  two  earnest  attempts  are 
made  to  save  this  precious  heritage.  One  of  these  at- 
tempts, which  seemed  to  promise  success,  proved  to  be  a 
failure;  the  other,  whose  issue  seemed  doubtful,  was 
centuries  later  crowned  with  success.  The  two  leaders 
of  these  movements  probably  never  met ;  and  very  prob- 
ably one  of  them  never  heard  the  name  of  the  other. 
They  are  Theodoric  and  Benedict. 

Theodoric's  attempt  is  involved  in  the  establishment 
of  an  Ostrogothic  kingdom  in  Italy,  which  was  to  re- 
spect and  preserve  the  things  of  Rome;  Benedict's  at- 
tempt was  the  regulation  of  the  already  existing  tenden- 
cies to  monasticism,  so  that  the  monasteries  themselves 
might  be  the  preservers  of  ancient  culture. 

Had  Theodoric's  attempt  succeeded,  we  should  have 
had  a  virtually  unbroken  Roman  tradition ;  but  to  offset 
that,  we  should  have  had  no  Holy  Roman  Empire,  and 
therefore  no  centralizing  power  in  the  world  of  Europe. 
Instead,  thanks  to  Benedict's  success,  while  the  tradi- 
tion was  broken  in  the  world  at  large,  it  was  preserved 
in  the  monasteries,  and  received  a  universal  fruition  at 
the  time  of  the  Renaissance. 

Cognizant  of  much  that  we  have  lost,  and  deeply  re- 
gretting that  loss,  we  still  feel  that  Fate  has  chosen  for 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     199 

us  the  better  part.  Our  task  in  this  chapter  is  the  consid- 
eration of  these  two  attempts. 

The  possibility  of  a  great  Gothic  empire  in  Russia 
was  destroyed  by  the  coming  of  the  Huns.  We  have 
seen  how  the  advent  of  these  strange  Orientals  caused 
the  Gothic  empire  to  break  into  two  parts,  —  a  west- 
ern section,  the  Visigoths,  with  whose  history  we  have 
already  dealt,  and  an  eastern  section,  the  Ostrogoths, 
who  form  the  subject  of  the  first  part  of  our  present 
chapter. 

It  was  about  the  year  370  that  these  Ostrogoths  were 
brought  into  subjection  by  the  Huns,  whom  they  contin- 
ued to  serve  for  more  than  eighty  years.  We  have  seen 
the  proof  of  their  devotion  or  at  least  of  the  thoroughness 
of  their  subjection,  in  their  participation  in  the  Battle  of 
the  Mauriac  Plain,  where  they  fought  on  the  side  of  the 
Huns  against  their  brethren,  the  Visigoths.  Jordanes, 
their  historian,  apologizes  for  the  action  of  the  Ostro- 
goths on  this  occasion,  excusing  it  on  the  ground  of  their 
absolute  subjection.  In  the  main,  however,  the  yoke 
of  the  Huns  was  relatively  light.  Nevertheless,  after 
Attila's  death,  when  the  Hunnish  power  had  been 
broken,  they  succeeded  in  obtaining  their  independence 
by  the  Battle  of  Nedao.  On  the  day  when  the  news  of 
this  great  national  victory  reached  the  palace  of  their 
king,  the  queen  brought  forth  a  man-child,  who  was 
called  Theodoric,  "Thiuda-Reiks,"  the  "people-ruler." 
This  baby  was  destined  to  form  a  great  Gothic  king- 


200    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

dom,  and  almost  to  succeed  in  the  task  of  preventing 
the  existence  of  the  "Middle  Ages." 

When  Theodoric  was  seven  years  old  (461),  he  was 
sent  as  a  hostage  to  Constantinople,  where  he  found  favor 
in  the  sight  of  the  Emperor  Leo,  being,  as  Jordanes  says, 
"puerolus  elegans."  For  ten  years  he  lived  at  Constan- 
tinople, participating  in  the  luxuries  of  the  life  of  a  king's 
son,  who  was  a  hostage  for  his  people.  But  these  ten 
years  were  not  able  to  sap  the  strength  of  his  Northern 
energy,  for  at  the  expiration  of  the  time,  being  now  a 
youth  of  seventeen,  he  returned  home,  and  finding  his 
father  absent,  collected  a  band  of  ten  thousand  young 
men,  the  old  Teutonic  comitatus  of  which  Tacitus  speaks, 
and  conducted  an  expedition  against  the  Sarmatians. 
Having  captured  Belgrade,  he  returned  home  rejoicing. 
He  had  won  his  spurs  and  had  now  a  right  to  sit  among 
the  leaders. 

There  now  follows  a  difficult  period  in  his  life,  a  long 
stretch  of  seventeen  years,  as  long  as  the  span  of  life 
which  he  had  already  covered,  for  he  was  but  seventeen. 
It  was  a  period  of  vacillation  and  indecision.  Constanti- 
nople and  his  own  people  both  called  him.  Should  he  be 
willing  to  leave  his  people,  an  honorable  and  comfortable 
career  awaited  him  at  Constantinople,  but  to  do  this 
would  be  in  a  sense  to  deny  his  own  royalty.  If  he  abode 
with  his  people,  he  would  be  indeed  their  king,  but  life 
would  be  one  long  struggle  against  starvation,  and  the 
oppression  by  the  Empire.  Finally  his  decision  is  made. 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     201 

Be  the  cost  never  so  great,  he  will  stand  by  his  people. 
Then  the  suggestion  arises  that  his  people  might  be  led 
into  a  new  land,  even  the  land  of  Italy.  In  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century  this  land  of 
Italy  had  fallen  away  from  the  Empire,  and  had  come 
into  the  power  of  a  foreign  tyrant,  and  a  band  of  mer- 
cenaries. This  tyrant  was  Flavius  Odovacar,  who  with 
the  Herulians  had  been  undisputed  master  of  Italy  since 
476,  when  he  had  deposed  Romulus  Augustulus.  There 
was  need  that  Italy  should  be  recaptured  for  the  Empire. 

It  is  not  exactly  clear  who  originated  this  idea  of  in- 
vading Italy  for  the  purpose  of  recapturing  it  for  the 
Empire,  but  it  seems  most  likely  that  it  came  from  Theo- 
doric  himself.  There  is  also  some  uncertainty  as  to  the 
exact  nature  of  the  contract  into  which  Theodoric  en- 
tered with  the  Emperor  Zeno.  But  the  spirit  of  the  con- 
tract seems  to  have  been  that  Theodoric  was  to  rule  in 
Italy  in  case  he  captured  it,  but  he  was  to  rule  in  the 
name  of  the  Emperor. 

Thus,  in  the  late  autumn  of  488,  Theodoric  started. 
We  must  not  conceive  of  his  forces  as  that  of  an  army  in 
marching  trim.  They  resembled  rather  a  nation,  for 
every  man  brought  his  family  with  him.  The  women 
and  the  children  lived  in  wagons,  and  the  flocks  and  the 
herds  were  driven  with  them.  It  has  been  estimated  that 
there  were  perhaps  two  hundred  thousand  souls  in  all, 
but  four  fifths  of  these  were  noncombatants,  so  that  the 
fighting  force  would  not  have  exceeded  forty  thousand. 


202    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

For  the  first  three  hundred  miles  their  journey  was  easy. 
Then  they  came  into  the  territory  of  the  Gepidae, 
through  whom  they  had  to  fight  their  way,  a  tedious 
process,  consuming  the  winter,  the  spring,  and  part  of 
the  summer  of  488-89.  The  Gepidae  were  defeated  in 
numerous  conflicts,  especially  in  the  Battle  of  Ulca,  and 
in  August,  489,  they  began  the  descent  into  Italy,  across 
the  Julian  Alps,  and  over  the  "  Birnbaum"  Pass.  Within 
two  months  Theodoric  had  inflicted  two  severe  defeats 
on  the  tyrant  Odovacar,  one  at  Isonzo  on  August  28, 
and  one  at  Verona  on  September  30.  Odovacar  fled  for 
refuge  to  Ravenna,  while  Theodoric  advanced  on  Milan. 
Ennodius,  in  his  Panegyric  on  Theodoric,  recounts  an 
incident  which  throws  light  on  the  personality  of  Theo- 
doric at  this  time.  He  tells  us  that  before  the  Battle  of 
Verona,  Theodoric  addressed  his  mother  and  his  sister  as 
follows :  — 

Thou  knowest,  O  mother,  that  thy  fame  is  spread  through- 
out all  the  world  because  of  the  honor  of  thine  offspring,  be- 
cause on  the  day  of  my  birth,  thou  didst  bring  forth  a  man- 
child.  And  now  the  time  has  come  when  the  field  of  battle  shall 
declare  what  manner  of  son  thou  hast.  There  is  work  to  be 
done  with  the  sword,  that  the  glory  of  my  ancestors  may  lose 
nothing  through  me.  For  how  does  the  glory  of  our  fathers 
profit  us,  unless  we  are  aided  by  our  own?  There  stands  before 
my  eyes  my  father,  of  whom  the  fortune  of  battle  never  made 
sport,  who  made  Fortune  favorable  to  him  by  the  might  which 
demanded  success.  That  was,  indeed,  a  leader  under  whom  tc 
fight!  —  who  had  no  fear  of  wavering  omens,  but  compellec 
them  to  be  favorable.  Bring  forth  the  embroidered  garments 


BENEDICT  AND  THE   OSTROGOTHS     203 

the  ornaments  of  the  loom.  Let  me  be  more  finely  clad  in  the 
line  of  battle  than  ever  I  was  on  a  holiday.  Let  him  who  does 
not  know  me  by  my  charge,  recognize  me  by  my  splendor. 
And  let  the  glory  of  my  garments  attract  the  eyes  of  the  cov- 
etous, and  if  I  am  wounded,  let  me  present  a  fairer  sight.  Let 
him  have  a  reward  of  his  labors,  him  to  whom  thou,  O  For- 
tune, shall  give  my  throat.  And  let  those  who  did  not  have 
the  opportunity  of  beholding  me  fighting,  gaze  wondering 
upon  my  splendor  as  I  lie  there. 

As  Ennodius  addressed  these  words  directly  to  Theo- 
doric  himself,  it  is  scarcely  likely  that  they  are  the  in- 
vention of  Ennodius.  Thus  they  present  a  marvelous 
picture  of  the  boastful  Northerner,  the  impetuous  Goth ; 
and  at  the  same  time  they  offer  a  presage  of  those  medi- 
aeval days  of  tournees  and  embroidered  garments,  which 
were  so  soon  to  come. 

After  this  brilliant  opening  campaign,  the  progress  of 
Theodoric's  conquest  became  slower.  It  was  almost  a 
year  before  the  next  considerable  victory,  the  Battle  of 
the  Adda,  August  n,  490.  The  war  could,  however,  be 
ended  only  by  the  capture  of  Ravenna,  and  the  taking 
prisoner  of  Odovacar.  It  was  a  tedious  blockade,  and 
the  city  did  not  surrender  until  February  25,  493,  in  the 
fourth  year  of  the  siege.  In  Theodoric's  case,  as  in  that 
of  Augustus,  the  beginning  and  the  end  of  his  career 
were  not  free  from  stain,  while  the  main  portion  of  his 
reign  was  unimpeachable;  and  the  murder  of  Cicero  was 
as  ignoble,  if  not  as  brutal,  an  act  as  the  slaying  of 
Odovacar.  The  revolting  feature  of  it  in  Theodoric's 


204    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

case  is  the  fact  that  Theodoric's  own  hand  committed 
the  murder,  and  that  Odovacar  was  his  guest  at  the  time. 

In  spite  of  this  brutal  prolusion  and  an  almost  equally 
bloody  epilogue,  Theodoric's  reign  was  almost  perfect. 
Conscious  that  he  was  ruling  over  two  peoples,  Goth 
and  Romans,  he  established  a  federation,  but  avoided 
the  dangers  and  difficulties  of  attempts  at  fusion.  Doubt- 
less he  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  such  a  fusion 
would  be  possible,  but  he  realized  its  impracticability 
for  the  present.  His  great  object  was  the  preservation 
of  that  which  he  called  CIVILITAS,  which  was  nothing 
more  or  less  than  ancient  culture.  He  strove  constantly 
to  be  impartial,  and,  mindful  perhaps  of  the  murdered 
Odovacar,  he  cultivated  self-restraint.  This  mildness 
was  particularly  noticeable  in  religious  matters,  where 
we  should  have  expected  him  to  be  otherwise ;  for  he  was 
an  Arian,  and  not  a  Catholic,  and  might  well  have  shared 
in  the  Arian's  love  of  persecution.  The  outward  events 
of  his  reign  are  few,  just  in  proportion  to  the  peaceful 
character  of  it.  His  capital  he  made  at  Ravenna,  which 
bears  even  to-day  the  marks  of  his  residence,  especially 
in  its  marvelous  mosaics;  but  he  loved  Pavia  and  Verona 
also,  though  there  no  monuments  of  him  remain. 

In  the  year  500,  he  visited  Rome.  He  came  as  a  Chris- 
tian, and  not  as  an  Arian,  for  he  went  first  to  Saint 
Peter's  and  prayed  at  the  Apostle's  grave,  "with  great 
piety,  and  as  if  he  were  a  Catholic,  "a  chronicler  remarks. 
Then  he  went  over  the  Ponte  S.  Angelo,  and  so  into  the 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     205 

city.  This  became  the  stereotyped  route  for  emperors 
entering  Rome;  it  was  followed  three  hundred  years 
later  by  Charlemagne. 

In  Rome,  Theodoric  lodged  on  the  Palatine.  The  Sen- 
ate met,  and  he  addressed  them,  though  his  pronuncia- 
tion was  doubtless  poor.  In  the  Latin  of  the  address, 
however,  he  may  well  have  been  assisted  by  his  able 
secretary,  Cassiodorus,  of  whom  we  shall  have  some- 
thing to  say  later.  It  is  a  curious  combination,  Cassio- 
dorus, the  Last  of  the  Senators,  and  Theodoric,  the  First 
of  the  Gothic  kings. 

During  this  Roman  visit  he  arranged  that  two  hun- 
dred pounds  weight  of  gold  (somewhat  over  two  hun- 
dred thousand  francs)  should  be  spent  every  year  for  the 
restoration  of  the  Palatine.  He  was  also  interested  in 
the  draining  of  the  Pontine  Marshes,  and  in  the  restora- 
tion of  the  Appian  Way,  and  a  memorial,  even  if  a  mis- 
taken one,  of  his  residence  in  the  Campagna,  is  the  name 
Palazzo  di  Teodorico,  which  is  given  to  the  ruins  on  the 
cliff  above  Terracina.  Thus  he  verified  what  the  brick 
stamps  say  of  him,  "Theodoric  born  for  the  good  of 
Rome." 

His  feelings  toward  Rome  are  given  us  in  an  edict 
(Cass.  Var.  vn,  15),  in  words  which  might  well  be  taken 
to  heart  by  modern  Rome:  "The  glorious  buildings  of 
Rome  ought  to  have  an  expert  guardian,  that  this  won- 
derful forest  of  walls  may  be  preserved  with  proper  dili- 
gence, and  the  modern  appearance  of  the  work  may  be 


206    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

conserved  with  suitable  dispositions."  .  .  .  Continu- 
ing, he  speaks  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world,  and 
adds:  "But  who  will  think  longer  of  them,  when  he  has 
beheld  so  many  amazing  things  in  one  single  city.  We 
give  credit  to  these  seven  wonders  because  they  belong 
to  an  older  age,  and  whatever  new  thing  was  done  in 
primitive  times  has  always  been  rightly  considered  as 
excellent.  But  now  it  can  only  be  called  the  truth,  if 
Rome  be  said  to  be  a  miracle." 

Still  more  remarkable  is  a  passage  in  which  he  speaks 
of  the  aqueducts,  those  same  aqueducts,  which  his  suc- 
cessor, another  Gothic  king,  but  of  a  different  stamp, 
was  so  ruthlessly  to  cut  in  the  struggle  for  the  capture 
of  Rome.  The  passage  in  question  was  of  course  written 
by  Cassiodorus,  but  in  the  name  of  the  Emperor  and 
with  his  approval  (Cass.  Var.  vn,  6) :  — 

One  of  the  extraordinary  things  about  the  City  of  Rome  is  the 
remarkable  healthfulness  of  the  water,  for  these  streams  are 
brought  here,  as  it  were,  by  the  building  of  mountains.  From 
the  solidity  of  the  rock  you  might  well  think  they  were  natural 
channels,  because  they  are  able  to  restrain  so  strongly  for  so 
many  centuries  such  a  force  of  flowing  waters.  Mountains 
themselves  often  cave  in  and  disappear,  and  the  channels  of 
torrents  are  changed,  but  this  work  of  the  men  of  old  time  is 
not  destroyed,  provided  it  be  protected  with  proper  diligence. 
Consider  what  an  ornament  to  Rome  this  mass  of  water  pro- 
vides !  For  in  what  would  the  beauties  of  the  baths  consist  if 
they  did  not  have  these  sweet  waters?  There  runs  the  Aqua 
Virgo,  so  delightful  and  pure,  and  doubtless  it  received  its 
name  for  this  very  reason,  because  it  is  denied  by  no  impuri- 
ties. .  .  .  The  Aqua  Claudia  by  a  vast  construction  rises  to 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     207 

the  top  of  the  Aventine,  and  when  it  comes  tumbling  down 
from  the  top,  it  seems  to  water  alike  the  tip  of  the  summit  and 
the  depths  of  the  valley.  .  .  .  The  Aqua  Claudia  in  Rome, 
crossing  the  dry  summits  of  so  many  mountains,  gives  forth 
from  its  bosom  streams  of  pure  water  for  washing-pools  and 
for  houses,  and  flows  so  equally  that  it  never  fails  when  it  is 
wanted. 

The  man  who  had  a  love  of  these  things  saw  the  vision 
of  a  Gothic  kingdom  in  Italy,  which  should  bring  to 
Rome  the  new  blood  which  she  needed,  and  should  take 
and  respect  those  treasures  of  the  past  with  which  Italy 
was  still  so  well  supplied.  But  not  only  did  his  ideal 
fail  of  fulfillment  for  lack  of  a  capable  successor ;  but  by 
the  closing  acts  of  his  life  doubt  springs  up  within  us  as 
to  whether  even  the  best  Gothic  spirit  was  capable  of 
holding  continuously  to  this  lofty  ideal.  In  almost  the 
last  year  of  Theodoric's  reign  his  religious  tolerance 
gave  way  under  the  strain  of  seeing  Catholics  in  the 
East  persecuting  the  Arians;  and  on  the  charge  of  con- 
spiracy, Symmachus  and  Boethius  were  put  to  death  after 
a  most  unjust  trial.  It  was  an  unfortunate  method  of 
reverencing  CIVILITAS,  which  led  Theodoric  to  put  to 
death  two  of  the  finest  representatives  of  ancient  Rome. 
They  gave  their  lives  for  a  philosophical  concept,  the 
liberty  of  Rome,  as  incorporated  in  the  Senate  of  Rome. 
The  next  year  (August  30,  526),  Theodoric  himself  died 
and  was  buried  in  his  own  mausoleum  at  Ravenna. 

His  ten-year-old  grandson,  Amalasuntha's  boy,  Athal- 
aric,  ascended  the  throne,  and  for  lack  of  a  worthy  sue- 


208    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

cessor  Theodoric's  dream  of  a  great  Gothic  kingdom  in 
Italy  was  straightway  cheated  of  its  fulfillment.  For 
only  a  quarter  of  a  century  more  the  Gothic  kingdom 
was  to  struggle  along  after  a  certain  fashion,  and  then 
the  Goths  themselves  were  to  leave  Italy,  and  the  place 
thereof  was  to  know  them  no  more. 

And  so  we  pass  to  the  second  half  of  our  story  of  the 
Goths,  the  account  of  how  Justinian  restored  Italy  to 
the  Eastern  Empire.  In  the  year  527,  Justinian  became 
Emperor  at  Constantinople.  It  is  in  the  main  his  gen- 
erals, Belisarius  and  Narses,  who  command  our  respect, 
and  not  the  Emperor  himself,  but  we  cannot  forbear  a 
word  about  his  character.  He  is  the  extreme  type  of  a 
great  legislator  and  a  poor  executive  officer,  —  one  of 
those  men,  who  know  mankind  in  theory,  but  not  in 
practice,  who  have  the  skill  to  legislate  for  a  nation,  but 
are  unable  to  set  their  own  house  in  order,  who  are  care- 
ful to  bridle  luxury  and  excess,  but  marry  women  of 
low  and  extravagant  tastes.  Justinian,  as  the  successor 
of  Gaius,  and  the  ancestor  of  Blackstone,  merits  our 
profound  admiration;  Justinian,  as  the  consort  of  the 
menagerie-keeper's  daughter,  Theodora,  is  a  pitiful  spec- 
tacle. 

If,  however,  as  is  sometimes  asserted,  greatness  con- 
sists in  the  ability  to  find  efficient  and  faithful  subordin- 
ates, Justinian  deserves  the  title  of  great,  because  of  his 
two  generals,  Belisarius  and  Narses.  Our  story  concerns 
itself  first  with  Belisarius. 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     209 

In  the  year  526,  when  Belisarius  was  twenty-one 
years  old,  he  was  given  the  command  of  Justinian's  Per- 
sian expedition,  and  within  seven  years  he  obtained  the 
Endless  Peace"  between  the  Empire  and  Persia.  But 
Justinian's  great  ambition  was  to  destroy  the  Vandal 
Kingdom,  and  restore  North  Africa  to  the  Empire. 
Thither,  then,  Belisarius  was  sent,  and  within  the  year 
his  work  was  completed.  It  was  a  fateful  work,  and  preg- 
nant with  far-reaching  consequence,  for  the  destruction 
of  the  Vandal  Kingdom  removed  from  North  Africa  the 
one  great  obstacle  in  the  way  of  the  Moorish  invasion 
which  was  to  follow  a  century  later,  and  if  Belisarius  had 
never  lived,  there  might  never  have  been  the  Battle  of 
Tours. 

Meantime  affairs  in  Italy  had  been  going  badly.  The 
young  king,  Athalaric,  was  being  brought  up  in  a  most 
unfortunate  manner  by  his  mother,  Amalasuntha.  His 
education,  or  rather  the  ill-advisedness  of  it,  caused  his 
death  in  534,  after  a  nominal  reign  of  but  eight  years. 
The  queen  mother,  left  alone,  promptly  associated  with 
herself  a  Gothic  noble,  by  name  Theodahad.  The  rela- 
tion was  merely  official,  not  personal,  for  her  partner 
was  already  married.  Within  a  few  months,  however, 
Theodahad  had  accomplished  the  death  of  Amalasuntha 
at  the  lonely  lake  of  Bolsena,  and  was  reigning  alone.  > 

Theodahad's  bad  behavior  was  Justinian's  opportunity 
to  effect  the  conquest  of  Italy,  and  thither  the  tireless 
Belisarius  was  sent.  The  actual  warfare  is  preceded  by 


210    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

a  strange  exhibition  of  diplomacy,  when  Theodahad 
offers  to  sell  his  crown  to  Justinian,  and  the  following 
correspondence  passes.  I  quote  the  two  letters  in  Hodg- 
kin's  spirited  translation  (Italy  and  Her  Invaders,  vol. 
IV,  p.  15  ff.). 
Theodahad  to  Justinian :  — 

I  am  not,  O  Emperor,  a  newcomer  into  the  halls  of  kings.  It 
was  my  fortune  to  be  born  a  king's  nephew  and  to  be  reared 
in  a  manner  worthy  of  my  race :  but  I  am  not  altogether  well 
versed  in  war  and  its  confusions.  From  the  first  I  have  been 
passionately  fond  of  literature,  and  have  spent  my  time  in  the 
study  thereof,  and  thus  it  has  been  till  now  my  lot  to  be  al- 
ways far  from  the  clash  of  arms.  It  seems,  therefore,  unwise 
of  me  to  continue  to  lead  a  life  full  of  danger  for  the  sake  of 
the  royal  dignity,  when  neither  danger  nor  dignity  is  a  thing 
that  I  enjoy.  Not  danger,  since  that  new  and  strange  sensa- 
tion perturbs  my  thoughts;  not  the  royal  dignity,  since  pos- 
session of  it  has,  according  to  the  general  law,  brought  satiety. 
Therefore,  if  some  landed  property  could  be  secured  to  me, 
bringing  in  a  yearly  income  of  not  less  than  twelve  hundred 
weight  of  gold  [about  a  million  and  a  quarter  francs] ,  I  should 
consider  that  more  valuable  to  me  than  my  kingship;  and  I 
am  willing  on  these  terms  to  hand  over  to  thee  the  sovereignty 
of  the  Goths  and  Italians.  I  think  that  I  shall  thus  be  happier 
as  a  peaceful  tiller  of  the  soil  than  as  a  king  immersed  in 
kingly  cares,  no  sooner  out  of  one  danger  than  into  another. 
Send  me,  then,  as  speedily  as  possible  a  commissioner  to  whom 
I  may  hand  over  Italy  and  all  that  pertains  to  my  kingship. 

The  following  is  Justinian's  reply :  — 

I  heard  long  ago  by  common  fame  that  you  were  a  man  of 
high  intelligence,  and  now  I  find  by  experience  that  this  is 
true.  You  show  your  wisdom  in  declining  to  await  the  ar- 
bitrament of  war,  which  has  plunged  some  men,  who  staked 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     211 

their  all  upon  it,  into  terrible  disasters.  You  will  never  have 
occasion  to  repent  having  turned  us  from  an  enemy  into  a 
friend.  You  shall  receive  all  the  property  that  you  ask  for, 
and,  in  addition,  your  name  shall  be  inscribed  in  the  highest 
rank  of  Roman  nobility.  I  now  send  Athanasius  and  Peter  to 
exchange  the  needful  ratifications,  and  in  a  short  time  Belisa- 
rius  will  come  to  complete  the  transaction  thus  settled  between 
us. 

Meantime,  Belisarius  was  pressing  on.  He  passed 
rapidly  from  Carthage  to  Syracuse,  thence  to  Palermo 
and  Messina,  and  so  to  the  mainland  at  Reggio.  Thence 
he  advanced  on  Naples  and  began  the  siege.  In  spite  of 
brave  resistance,  the  city  was  finally  captured  by  the 
expedient  of  using  the  aqueducts  as  means  of  approach. 
Naples  having  been  captured,  Belisarius  marched  on 
Rome. 

The  fall  of  Naples  convinced  the  Goths  of  the  useless- 
ness  of  their  king,  Theodahad,  who,  in  spite  of  the  diplo- 
matic negotiations  with  Justinian,  had  not  as  yet  re- 
signed. Accordingly  they  held  a  great  council  on  the 
Pontine  Marshes,  on  a  plain  not  far  from  Terracina,  de- 
posed Theodahad,  and  chose  Witigis  as  their  king.  The 
first  act  of  Witigis  was  to  kill  Theodahad;  the  second 
was  to  abandon  Rome,  leaving  a  mere  perfunctory  gar- 
rison, and  to  retreat  to  Ravenna. 

When  Belisarius,  therefore,  arrived  from  Naples,  com- 
ing along  the  Via  Latina,  he  marched  in  by  the  Porta 
Asinaria,  while  the  Gothic  garrison  abandoned  the  city 
by  the  Porta  Flaminia.  This  error  on  the  part  of  Witigis 


212     RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

is  an  interesting  example  of  the  practical  value  of  ideals. 
Had  Witigis  been  more  of  an  idealist,  had  he  appreciated 
more  truly  the  sentimental  value  of  Rome,  he  would 
not  have  made  the  tactical  error  of  abandoning  the  city. 
It  was  true  then,  as  it  has  been  true  ever  since,  that  he 
who  holds  Rome  holds  Italy.  He  soon  realized  his  mis- 
take, but  it  was  too  late,  and  thus  the  long  siege  of  Rome 
began.  It  was  the  month  of  December,  536,  when  the 
troops  of  Belisarius  marched  into  Rome.  It  was  not, 
however,  until  the  following  March  that  the  siege  began. 
During  these  intervening  three  months,  Belisarius  made 
his  preparations.  Outside  of  the  city  he  captured  Narni, 
Spoleto,  and  Perugia.  In  the  city  itself  he  repaired  the 
old  walls  of  Aurelian,  which  had  been  last  restored  by 
Honorius  a  century  and  a  quarter  before. 

Meantime  the  Gothic  king,  Witigis,  had  raised  at  Ra- 
venna an  army  which  is  said  to  have  contained  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  men,  and  with  this  force  he  now 
marched  southwards,  and  surrounded  the  city  by  seven 
Gothic  camps.  The  siege,  the  most  memorable  that 
Rome  ever  suffered,  lasted  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
four  days.  It  is  full  of  picturesque  incidents,  into  which 
we  have  no  time  to  enter,  among  them  the  attack  on 
Hadrian's  Mausoleum,  which  was  defended  at  the  cost 
of  hurling  the  statues  down  on  the  Goths.  But  the 
most  memorable  event  was  the  cutting  of  the  aque- 
ducts by  the  Goths.  The  consequences  of  this  action 
were  twofold.  The  immediate  result  was  that,  while  the 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     213 

Goths  could  cut  the  aqueducts,  they  could  not  stay 
their  flow,  and  the  continual  outpouring  of  them  changed 
the  Campagna  near  Rome  into  a  morass,  with  the  con- 
sequent increase  of  malaria,  so  that  the  Goths  were  de- 
cimated and  compelled  to  abandon  the  siege.  Thus  the 
aqueducts  gave  their  life  for  the  salvation  of  Rome. 
There  was,  however,  another  and  much  more  diastrous 
result,  in  that,  by  the  destruction  of  these  aqueducts, 
the  custom  of  bathing  was  discontinued.  To  be  sure,  the 
baths  were  disapproved  of  by  the  church,  because  of 
their  immorality,  but  had  the  aqueducts  and  the  baths 
continued,  they  would  have  been  purified  in  time  by  the 
church  and  doubtless  finally  accepted.  Thus  the  sanc- 
tion of  Christian  Rome  would  have  been  placed  on  the 
habit  of  bathing,  and  obedience  to  Rome  and  imitation 
of  her  would  have  made  the  custom  universal  in  the 
Western  world.  It  is  safe  to  say  that,  had  the  Goths  not 
cut  the  aqueducts,  bathing  would  have  been  as  custom- 
ary in  Europe  as  it  is  in  Japan.  There  would  have  been 
no  need  of  the  renaissance  of  bathing  which  the  nineteenth 
century  brought. 

Within  two  years  'Italy  was  conquered  by  the  Impe- 
rial troops,  and  Witigis  was  carried  to  "Constantinople 
where  he  died  in  540.  However,  the  Gothic  cause  in 
Italy  gradually  regained  its  strength,  and  in  541  it  ob- 
tained a  splendid  leader  in  the  person  of  the  newly  ap- 
pointed king  Totila.  Four  years  later,  in  the  autumn  of 
545,  Totila  began  the  second  Gothic  siege  of  Rome.  On 


214    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

December  17,  546,  the  Porta  Asinaria  was  treacherously 
opened  to  the  Goths,  and  Rome  was  again  captured  and 
sacked.  The  Roman  garrison  escaped  by  the  Porta 
Flaminia,  and  there  were  left  only  a  few  hundred  in- 
habitants. Then  Totila  formed  the  infamous  plan  of 
destroying  Rome,  so  entirely  had  the  CIVILITAS  of 
Theodoric  been  forgotten.  But  Belisarius  remonstrated 
with  him  in  a  very  wonderful  letter,  which  Procopius 
(B.  G.  in,  22)  has  preserved  to  us.  Once  again  I  use 
Hodgkin's  translation,  for,  though  it  is  slightly  free,  es- 
pecially toward  the  end,  it  gives  a  splendid  impression  of 
the  spirit  of  the  letter:  — 

Fair  cities  are  the  glory  of  the  great  men  who  have  been 
their  founders,  and  surely  no  wise  man  would  wish  to  be  re- 
membered as  the  destroyer  of  any  of  them.  But  of  all  cities 
under  the  sun,  Rome  is  confessed  to  be  the  greatest  and  most 
glorious.  No  one  man,  no  single  century,  reared  her  greatness. 
A  long  line  of  kings  and  emperors,  the  united  efforts  of  some  of 
the  noblest  of  men,  a  vast  interval  of  time,  a  lavish  expendi- 
ture of  wealth,  the  most  costly  materials,  and  the  most  skillful 
craftsmen  of  the  world  have  all  united  to  make  Rome.  Slowly 
and  gradually  has  each  succeeding  age  there  reared  its  monu- 
ments. Any  act,  therefore,  of  wanton  outrage  against  this 
city  will  be  resented  as  an  injustice  by  the  men  of  all  ages,  by 
those  who  have  gone  before  us,  because  it  effaces  the  memorials 
of  their  greatness,  by  those  who  shall  come  after,  since  the 
most  wonderful  sight  in  the  world  will  no  longer  be  theirs  to 
look  upon.  Remember,  too,  that  this  war  must  end  either  in 
the  Emperor's  victory  or  your  own.  If  you  should  prove  to  be 
the  conqueror,  how  great  will  be  your  delight  in  having  pre- 
served the  most  precious  jewel  in  your  crown.  If  yours  should 
turn  out  to  be  the  losing  side,  great  will  be  the  thanks  due  frorr 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     215 

the  conquerors  for  the  preservation  of  Rome,  while  its  destruc- 
tion would  make  every  plea  for  mercy  and  humanity  on  your 
part  inadmissible.  And,  last  of  all,  comes  the  question,  what 
shall  be  your  eternal  record  in  history,  whether  you  will  be 
remembered  as  the  preserver  or  the  destroyer  of  the  greatest 
city  of  the  world? 

The  city  was  spared,  but  Totila  abandoned  it  imme- 
diately with  his  army,  and  for  forty  days  Rome  was 
uninhabited.  These  forty  days  are  the  only  break  in  a 
sequence  of  three  thousand  years  of  human  habitation 
on  this  spot. 

At  the  end  of  forty  days,  or  thereabouts,  Belisarius 
by  a  clever  cavalry  movement  recaptured  the  city,  and 
the  Imperial  troops  remained  in  possession  until  549, 
when  the  city  fell  once  again  into  the  hands  of  Totila.  On 
this  occasion  Totila  showed  himself  such  an  entire  con- 
vert to  the  ideal  of  Belisarius  that  now  it  was  not  a 
question  of  destroying  but  rather  of  rebuilding  Rome; 
and  once  more  races  were  held  in  the  Circus  Maximus. 
But  this  restoration  of  Gothic  CIVILITAS  was  shortlived. 
Justinian's  second  general,  the  eunuch,  Narses,  was  sent 
to  Italy,  and  with  his  coming,  and  the  "Battle  of  the 
Apennines"  (552),  Totila  was  defeated  and  killed.  In 
the  next  year  the  Goths  moved  out  of  Italy  and  were 
lost  to  history. 

It  was  less  than  seventy  years  since  Theodoric  had 
led  his  nation  across  the  Alps.  During  these  years  the 
great  Gothic  kingdom  in  Italy  had  been  established ;  and 
it  was  only  twenty-seven  years  since  its  founder  had 


2i6    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

died.  But  twenty-seven  years,  at  the  hands  of  Belisa- 
rius  and  Narses,  sufficed  to  destroy  this  kingdom,  and 
with  its  destruction  to  render  hopeless  the  ideal  of  pre- 
serving Roman  culture.  Theodoric's  solution  had  failed ; 
and  we  must  now  turn  to  Benedict. 

To  understand,  however,  what  Benedict  did,  we  must 
first  consider  for  a  moment  the  history  of  Christianity 
since  Constantine.  In  the  last  two  centuries  of  the  Ro- 
man Republic  we  saw  the  rise  of  individualism,  in  con- 
nection with  the  pathological  growth  of  extreme  self- 
consciousness,  which  arose  under  conditions  of  self-in- 
dulgence. We  saw  this  instinct  manifesting  itself  along 
religious  lines  in  a  morbid  concern  for  personal  salva- 
tion. We  saw  the  attempted  solutions  of  this  religious 
need,  first  in  philosophy,  and  then  in  the  cults  of  the 
Orient.  Among  these  latter  cults  it  was  Christianity 
which  offered  the  most  interesting  solution,  for  while  it 
recognized  the  individualistic  tendency,  it  also  strove  to 
correct  it  by  its  accentuation  of  man's  responsibilities  to 
those  about  him.  One  of  its  fundamental  doctrines  was 
the  bearing  of  one  another's  burdens ;  and  those  who  had 
ears  to  hear  might  realize  the  hard  saying  that  he  that 
loseth  his  soul  shall  find  it,  and  he  that  findeth  his  soul 
shall  lose  it.  But  these  lofty  ideals  were  not  carried  out 
in  practice,  and  a  great  many  adherents  of  the  new  relig- 
ion were  primarily  concerned  with  the  cultivation  and 
salvation  of  their  individual  souls.  There  was  also  the 
Oriental  element  in  Christianity,  common  to  it  and  all 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     217 

the  other  religions  of  the  Orient,  which  caused  it  to  de- 
spise this  present  world,  and  to  focus  its  attention  on 
the  life  to  come.  Its  lessons  of  helpfulness  and  philan- 
thropy were  entirely  forgotten  in  the  presence  of  the 
pressing  need  of  securing  one's  own  salvation.  But  this 
contempt  of  the  present  life  was  not  confined  to  a  con- 
tempt of  the  world  itself ;  it  included  also  the  individuals 
in  the  world.  The  Christians  felt  themselves  to  be  elect 
above  their  fellows  and  took  supreme  satisfaction  in  this 
realization.  But  as  the  Christian  community  grew  in 
numbers,  so  their  feeling  of  superiority  was  more  insuf- 
ficiently satisfied.  Beyond  all  this,  it  was  doubtless 
true  that,  when  the  masses  accepted  Christianity,  its 
ideals  inevitably  suffered,  and  its  demands  were  lowered. 
In  340,  a  church  council  declared  that  the  Gospel  in- 
junctions about  poverty  were  not  intended  for  the  or- 
dinary Christian.  Thus,  unconsciously,  a  double  stand- 
ard was  established,  that  of  the  ordinary  and  of  the 
extraordinary  Christian;  and  those  men,  of  whom  there 
are  always  a  certain  number  in  every  community,  who 
desired  a  more  perfect  way,  could  find  this  more  perfect 
way  only  by  leaving  the  world,  and  retreating  into  soli- 
tude, where  their  own  higher  ideals  would  be  uninter- 
rupted. In  this  way  only  could  they  obtain  that  feeling 
of  especial  electness  above  their  fellows.  And  thus  out 
of  the  Ascetic  grew  the  Anchorite,  the  Hermit. 

There  was,  however,  another  and  a  nobler  reason 
which  attracted  men  to  the  solitary  life.   During  these 


2i8    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

centuries  men  of  individuality  and  ability  had  few 
chances  to  lead  an  active  life,  a  life  with  a  purpose.  The 
cultivation  of  religion,  however,  offered  such  activity. 
The  life  of  voluntary  renunciation  gave  more  fully  even 
of  this  present  life,  than  could  the  acceptance  of  the 
status  of  placid  nonentity. 

Thus  in  the  great  economy  of  nature,  with  the  break- 
down of  the  outer  world,  there  went  the  building-up  of 
the  inner  world,  —  "the  kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within 
you."  On  this  principle  men  lost  the  world  in  order  that 
they  might  find  it ;  and  as  the  inner  life  grew  in  reality, 
the  outer  life  became  more  and  more  unreal.  We  can 
trace  the  growth  of  this  movement  as  early  as  the  end 
of  the  second  century,  when  Tertullian  declaims  against 
it,  asserting  that  Christians  are  not  SILVICOL^E  or 
EXULES  VIT^E.  But  nevertheless  the  Solitaries  continued 
to  increase.  It  was  Upper  Egypt,  especially  the  region 
near  Thebes,  which  was  favored  by  these  Solitaries. 
There  the  Hermit  Paul  (228-341)  went  into  the  desert 
at  twenty- three,  and  lived  in  solitude  for  ninety  years; 
and  there  Antony  (251-356)  passed  the  best  part  of  a 
century.  But  women  as  well  as  men  sought  the  better 
way;  for  example,  the  penitents,  Thais  and  Pelagia. 

But  human  nature  enjoys  receiving  credit  for  its  vir- 
tue, and  a  man  in  the  desert  would  be  of  necessity  de 
prived  of  an  audience.  Thus  altitude  was  substitutec 
for  latitude  and  the  Stylitae  arose,  men  who  lived  on  the 
tops  of  pillars,  with  their  prototype,  Simon  Stylites  o 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     219 

Antioch.  Even  more  grotesque  and  terrible  were  those 
who  walled  themselves  up  from  the  waist  down,  like  a 
certain  enthusiast  near  Tours. 

But  man  is  by  nature  a  sociable  animal,  and  the  her- 
mit is  the  exception.  Accordingly,  when  the  craze  for 
Anchoritism  had  subsided,  those  who  still  desired  to 
leave  this  evil  world  evolved  the  idea  of  leaving  it  in  com- 
panies. They  would  thus  be  able  to  combine  solitude  and 
companionship.  Thus  began  monastic  life.  It  is  signi- 
ficant that  it,  too,  began  in  Egypt,  where  Pachomius, 
about  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  ruled  over  four- 
teen hundred  brethren,  divided  into  nine  communities. 
The  importance  of  Pachomius  is  only  just  beginning  to 
be  realized.  Born  about  285,  he  began  life  as  a  monk  of 
Serapis,  and  his  biographer  tells  us  that  he  employed  his 
time  in  raising  vegetables  and  palms  for  his  own  use  and 
for  the  benefit  of  his  neighbors.  Being  converted  to 
Christianity,  he  joined  a  colony  of  hermits,  a  sort  of  in- 
termediate stage  between  the  solitary  hermit  and  the 
fully  organized  monastery.  It  seems  to  have  been  at  this 
time  that  he  recognized  the  advantages  of  companion- 
ship, and  conceived  the  idea  of  an  organized  monastic 
life.  What  makes  his  case  especially  interesting  is  his 
early  connection  with  Serapis;  for  while  the  Christian 
monasticism  of  Egypt  is  not  derived  from  Serapis,  it  is 
possible  that  Serapis  may  have  influenced  it  in  some 
minor  points,  as,  for  example,  in  the  tonsure.  Slightly 
later,  the  Hungarian  Martin  founded  a  monastery,  first 


220    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

at  Milan,  and  later  at  Tours.  Thus  in  the  Western  Em- 
pire, and  somewhat  similarly  in  the  Eastern  Empire, 
Monastic  communities  were  springing  up.  It  is  import- 
ant to  realize  that  these  monks  were  laymen,  and  proud 
of  their  position.  In  fact,  at  this  time  the  monks  were  in 
dread  of  being  ordained.  But  there  were  two  dangers  to 
which  these  monasteries  were  exposed :  there  was,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  danger  that  they  might  grow  lawless  and 
uncontrolled,  and  their  inmates  therefore  idlers  and 
vagabonds;  and  there  was  also  the  danger  that  they 
might  fall  entirely  under  the  domination  of  the  priests. 

Because  it  satisfied  a  real  human  need,  the  institution 
of  monasticism  was  destined  to  grow  greater  with  suc- 
ceeding centuries,  but  if  it  were  to  be  of  any  profit  to  the 
world  at  large,  it  must  be  controlled  and  put  to  work. 
This  was  the  task  of  Benedict,  and  if  one  wishes  to  esti- 
mate the  value  of  his  accomplishment,  one  has  but  to 
look  at  the  Eastern  Empire,  where  there  was  a  Basil  but 
no  Benedict,  i.e.,  no  principle  of  stability  and  useful 
occupation. 

Benedict  was  born  about  480,  at  Norcia,  the  ancient 
Nursia,  the  frigida  Nursia  of  Virgil's  JEneid,  a  small 
town  about  twenty  miles  east  of  Spoleto.  In  sharp  con- 
trast to  Augustine,  we  know  nothing  of  his  mother.  His 
father,  Euprobus,  was  a  Roman  of  noble  birth.  For  the 
facts  of  Benedict's  life  we  are  largely  dependent  on  the 
Vita,  written  by  his  disciple,  Pope  Gregory  the  Great; 
for  the  spirit  and  personality  of  the  man  we  may  go  to 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     221 

Benedict's  Rule.  The  former  source  of  information, 
Gregory's  Vita,  is  disappointing.  It  deals  largely  with 
the  miracles  of  Benedict,  a  theme  in  which  Gregory  was 
especially  interested,  and  gives  relatively  little  insight 
into  his  character;  the  latter  of  our  sources,  the  Rule,  is 
admirable  so  far  as  it  goes;  and  a  careful  study  of  it 
brings  us  much  nearer  to  a  knowledge  of  the  man  than 
would  at  first  sight  seem  possible. 

When  at  a  tender  age  and  while  still  under  the  tutelage 
of  a  pedagogue,  Benedict  came  to  Rome,  and  to  his 
father's  house,  which  is  supposed  to  have  been  in  Traste- 
vere  on  the  site  of  the  modern  Church  of  S.  Benedetto, 
in  Piscinula.  But  if  we  are  correctly  informed,  his  stay 
in  Rome  was  short,  and  his  sensitive  youth  was  so  terrified 
by  the  wickedness  of  the  city  that  he  straightway  went 
into  the  desert.  For  him  this  desert  was  not  Egypt,  but 
the  upper  valley  of  the  Anio.  It  is  significant  of  the  devas- 
tation wrought  by  the  wars  and  rumors  of  war,  that  this 
region,  where  once  had  stood  Horace's  Sabine  farm,  with 
its  atmosphere  redolent  of  peace,  and  Nero's  villa,  with 
its  gardens  and  chain  of  artificial  lakes,  should  be  at  this 
time  a  wilderness. 

The  story  of  Benedict's  wandering  is  a  series  of  beau- 
tiful pictures,  which  may  easily  be  called  legends,  but 
may  equally  well,  for  the  major  part  at  least,  represent 
historical  facts.  There  is  no  profit  in  approaching  these 
stories  in  a  rationalistic  spirit.  If  we  are  to  enter  at  all 
into  sympathy  with  Benedict's  life,  and  into  the  atmos- 


222     RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

phere  of  his  age,  we  must  accept  these  stories  without  dis- 
pute and  enjoy  their  beauty.  At  Subiaco,  forty-four 
miles  from  Rome,  Benedict  met  a  certain  Romanus, 
who  showed  him  a  cave  in  which  Benedict  dwelt  alone 
for  three  years.  His  food  was  lowered  to  him  from  the 
top  of  the  cliff  in  a  basket,  and  a  terra-cotta  bell,  such  as 
is  still  so  common  in  the  Abruzzi,  tied  at  the  end  of  a 
rope,  called  him  from  his  devotions  to  partake  of  his 
meals.  But  one  day  the  Devil,  observing  his  method  of 
life,  broke  the  bell  by  throwing  a  stone  at  it,  and  Bene- 
dict was  in  danger  of  starvation.  But  a  good  presbyter 
was  warned  of  the  Lord  in  a  vision,  and  he  took  his  Easter 
fare  with  him  in  a  basket  and  sought  the  cave  and  found 
Benedict.  It  was  in  these  years  that  when  tempted  by 
the  lust  of  the  flesh,  he  threw  himself  into  a  thicket  of 
thorns  to  conquer  the  temptation.  This  thicket  still 
grows  by  the  mouth  of  the  cave,  but  it  is  a  rosebush  now 
ever  since  the  visit  of  the  gentle  Saint  Francis.  It  is  of 
these  years  that  Benedict  is  thinking  in  the  first  part  of 
his  Rule,  when  he  speaks  of  the  life  of  the  Anchorites. 

The  second  class  of  monks  is  that  of  the  Anchorites,  that  is 
to  say,  of  the  Hermits.  These  men,  not  under  the  influence  oi 
conversion,  and  with  the  fervor  of  the  novice,  but  having  hac 
first  a  long  experience  in  a  monastery,  and  having  been  taughl 
by  the  aid  of  many,  have  learned  how  to  fight  the  Devil,  anc 
thus,  being  well  instructed  by  fighting  shoulder  to  shouldei 
with  their  brothers,  they  are  able  at  last,  with  the  aid  of  God 
to  fight  in  safety,  without  the  help  of  others,  but  by  their  owr 
hand  and  their  own  arm  alone,  against  the  sins  of  the  flest 
and  evil  thoughts. 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     223 

Between  the  lines  we  can  read  the  recollection  full  of 
pity  for  the  young  boy  who  suffered  alone  in  the  thicket 
of  thorns. 

At  this  time  the  monks  of  Vicovaro  desired  to  have 
Benedict  as  their  abbot.  It  was  in  one  of  their  reaction- 
ary moments,  when  they  confused  temporary  satiety 
with  true  repentance.  When  they  came  to  their  truer 
and  worse  selves  again,  they  rebelled  against  him.  It  is 
interesting  that  he,  who,  as  the  father  of  all  Western 
monks,  was  to  rule  for  centuries  after  his  death,  was  un- 
able to  control  this,  his  first  monastery.  Finally  they 
tried  to  poison  him,  but  he  escaped  by  a  miracle  and  re- 
turned to  the  wilderness.  He  was  learning  by  experience 
the  necessity  of  a  "rule"  for  monks.  Later  he  estab- 
lished twelve  monasteries  in  the  valley  of  Subiaco,  and 
was  joined  by  his  faithful  disciples,  Maurus  and  Placi- 
dus.  But  the  strife  of  the  communities  was  so  great  that 
he  left  Subiaco  in  528,  and  proceeded  across  the  moun- 
tains until  he  came  to  the  site  of  an  old  temple  of  Apollo 
on  Monte  Cassino,  where  he  founded  his  monastery. 

At  Monte  Cassino  he  abode  for  fifteen  years,  until  his 
death  in  543.  It  was  there  that  he  passed  those  years 
which  were  so  troublous  for  Italy  and  which  we  described 
at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter,  the  turmoil  of  Amal- 
asuntha,  Theodahad,  Witigis,  and  Totila.  There  from 
the  peace  of  the  mountain-top  he  could  look  down  on  the 
long  stretch  of  the  Via  Latina  and  see  the  troops 
marching  north  and  south,  now  Belisarius,  now  the 


224    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Ostrogoths.    But  except  for  one  visit  from  Totila,  he 
seems  to  have  lived  apart  from  it  all. 

Turning  now  from  Benedict  to  his  Rule,  we  may  no- 
tice that  in  comparison  with  the  extremes  to  which 
monastic  discipline  was  usually  carried  it  was  to  be  an 
easy  rule.  The  beautiful  prologue  begins  thus :  — 

Hear,  O  my  son,  the  teachings  of  the  master,  and  incline  the 
ear  of  thy  heart,  and  receive  with  joy  the  command  of  a  loving 
father,  and  fulfill  it  industriously,  in  order  that,  by  the  labor 
of  obedience,  thou  mayest  return  unto  him  from  whom  by  the 
slothfulness  of  disobedience  thou  hadst  departed.  For  to  thee 
now  my  words  are  directed,  whosoever  thou  art,  who  givest 
up  thine  own  sinful  desires,  and  art  ready  to  fight  for  the  Lord 
Christ,  the  true  king,  and  to  take  the  strong  and  noble  arms  of 
obedience.  .  .  .  We  are  to  establish,  therefore,  a  school  for  the 
service  of  the  Lord ;  and  in  this  institution  we  hope  that  we  are 
not  about  to  prescribe  anything  which  is  harsh  or  burdensome. 
But  if,  obeying  the  dictates  of  reason  and  of  justice,  and  for 
the  sake  of  correcting  human  faults  and  preserving  charity, 
we  may  seem  in  some  things  to  have  been  a  trifle  too  strict, 
do  not  take  fright  and  flee  away  from  the  path  of  salvation. 
For  the  way  of  salvation  must  needs  have  a  narrow  beginning, 
but  in  the  progress  of  spiritual  life  and  of  faith,  and  as  our 
heart  grows  wider,  it  is  with  an  indescribable  sweetness  of  love 
that  we  run  in  the  way  of  the  commandments  of  the  Lord. 
Therefore,  never  departing  from  his  teaching,  and  living  our 
life  in  his  doctrines  in  the  monastery  even  unto  death,  let  us  in 
patience  share  in  the  Passion  of  Christ,  that  we  may  be  worthy 
to  be  with  Him  in  his  kingdom. 

One  of  the  prime  requirements  is  the  principle  of 
STABILITAS.  Vagabondage  and  the  bands  of  itinerant 
monks  are  strictly  forbidden :  "The fourth  class  of  monks 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     225 

are  those  who  are  called  '  Wanderers/  who  throughout 
their  whole  life  in  various  provinces  abide  for  three  or  four 
days  at  a  time  in  various  cells,  always  wandering,  and 
never  abiding,  given  over  to  their  own  desires  and  the 
lusts  of  the  flesh.'*  But  if  monks  are  to  be  content  to 
live  their  lives  in  one  place,  they  must  be  kept  occupied ; 
hence  the  spirit  of  work  which  breathes  out  of  the  Rule. 
We  see  this,  for  example,  in  section  48,  "Concerning  the 
Daily  Work  of  the  Hands":  "Idleness  is  the  enemy  of 
the  soul.  Therefore,  at  certain  times  the  brothers 
should  occupy  themselves  with  the  labor  of  the  hands, 
and  similarly  at  certain  hours  with  the  reading  of  the 
Scriptures."  Then  follows  a  detailed  disposition  of  the 
hours  of  the  day,  according  to  the  season  of  the  year. 
The  rules  for  the  observance  of  Lent  are  especially  inter- 
esting: "  In  the  days  of  Lent,  moreover,  from  the  morn- 
ing until  the  end  of  the  third  hour,  let  them  give  their 
attention  to  reading,  and  from  then  until  the  end  of  the 
tenth  hour,  let  them  labor  at  that  which  has  been  given 
them  to  do.  In  the  days  of  Lent,  let  them  all  receive 
from  the  library  one  book  apiece  and  let  each  one  read 
his  book  through.  These  books  are  to  be  given  at  the 
beginning  of  Lent.  But  above  all,  let  there  be  appointed 
one  or  two  elders,  that,  during  the  hours  when  the 
Brethren  are  occupied  with  reading,  they  may  pass 
through  the  Monastery  to  see  if  by  any  evil  chance  there 
be  found  any  brother  who  is  idle  or  who  is  gossiping  or 
who  is  not  busy  with  the  reading.  For  such  an  one  not 


226    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

only  does  evil  himself,  but  also  disturbs  the  others.  And 
if  any  such  idle  brother  be  found  —  may  it  not  be  so !  — 
let  him  be  rebuked  for  the  first  and  the  second  time;  and 
if  he  does  not  mend  his  ways,  let  him  be  subjected  to  a 
regular  punishment,  such  that  the  rest  may  fear." 

Benedict's  motto  was  "  Pax,"  and  no  one  can  read  the 
Rule  without  a  great  desire  to  seek  peace  and  pursue  it. 
The  ends  to  be  obtained  are  goodness  and  discipline 
and  knowledge.  There  is  a  deep  reverence  in  the  whole 
book,  as,  for  example,  in  the  twentieth  section,  "Con- 
cerning the  Reverence  of  Prayer" :  "  If  when  we  wish  to 
obtain  a  favor  from  powerful  men,  we  do  not  presume 
to  ask  it  except  with  humility  and  reverence,  how  much 
more  should  we  pray  with  all  humility  and  pure  devo- 
tion to  the  Lord  God  of  all.  For  we  know  that  we  are  not 
heard  for  our  much  speaking,  but  according  to  the  purity 
of  our  heart  and  the  genuineness  of  our  tears.  Thus  our 
prayer  should  be  short  and  simple,  unless  perchance,  by 
the  inspiration  of  the  Divine  Grace,  it  be  prolonged.  But 
when  prayer  is  made  in  common,  it  should  be  short,  and 
at  a  sign  from  the  Superior  all  should  rise  together." 

There  is  also  abundance  of  hospitality,  as  many 
scholars  still  experience  to-day  at  Monte  Cassino.  This 
is  laid  down  in  two  marvelous  paragraphs  (53) :  — 

Let  all  strangers  who  come  be  received  as  though  they  were 
Christ,  because  one  day  He  will  say  to  you,  "  I  was  a  stranger, 
and  ye  took  me  in."  And  let  honor  be  shown  to  them  all,  but 
especially  to  the  servants  of  the  faith  and  to  pilgrims.  And  as 
soon  as  a  stranger  is  announced,  let  him  be  met  by  the  Prior 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     227 

or  by  the  Brethren  with  every  loving  attention.  And  let  them 
first  pray  together,  and  then  let  them  be  united  in  the  kiss  of 
peace.  But  let  not  the  kiss  of  peace  be  given,  until  prayer  has 
first  been  made,  on  account  of  the  machinations  of  the  Devil. 
And  in  the  salutation  of  those  who  come  or  of  those  who  go, 
let  great  humility  be  shown,  and  with  the  body  prostrate 
on  the  ground,  let  Christ  be  adored  in  them,  even  as  He  is 
received  in  them. 

Then  follow  a  series  of  minor  rules  thought  out  with 
loving  care :  that  at  the  coming  of  strangers  the  abbot 
should  break  his  fast,  unless  it  be  one  of  the  major  fasts, 
which  must  not  be  broken,  but  in  any  case  the  Brethren 
should  continue  fasting ;  that  they  should  give  them  water 
for  their  hands,  and  wash  their  feet.  But  above  all, 
especial  care  and  attention  should  be  shown  to  the  poor, 
"  because  that  in  them  most  particularly  Christ  is  re- 
ceived." "Let  the  bedroom  for  the  strangers  be  under 
the  care  of  a  Brother  whose  soul  is  filled  with  the  fear  of 
God,  and  in  this  room  let  there  be  beds  made  ready  in 
abundance,  and  let  the  house  of  God  be  governed  wisely. 
And  let  no  one  to  whom  it  is  not  commanded  speak  to 
these  strangers,  but  if  he  meets  them  or  sees  them,  let 
him  salute  them  with  humility,  as  has  been  said,  and, 
asking  their  blessing,  pass  by  them,  explaining  that  he  is 
not  allowed  to  speak  with  them."  The  sixty-first  chap- 
ter contains  special  rules  for  the  entertainment  of  pil- 
grim monks:  "If  any  pilgrim  monk  shall  come  from  the 
far-away  provinces,  and  shall  wish  to  abide  as  a  guest 
in  the  monastery,  and  if  he  shall  be  content  with  the 


228    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

habits  of  the  place  as  he  finds  it,  and  shall  not  disturb 
the  monastery  by  his  presence,  but  shall  show  himself 
content,  let  him  be  received  for  as  long  a  time  as  he  de- 
sires. If,  however,  he  finds  fault  or  makes  criticisms 
reasonably  and  with  loving  humility,  let  the  Abbot  give 
careful  attention  to  his  suggestions,  for  perhaps  God 
may  have  sent  the  stranger  there  for  that  very  purpose." 

It  is  again  this  same  humility  which  comes  to  expres- 
sion in  the  beautiful  words  with  which  the  Rule  closes: 
"And  thou,  whoever  thou  art,  who  art  hastening  to  the 
Heavenly  country,  fulfill  first  with  the  aid  of  Christ  this 
little  rule  of  introduction  here  laid  down.  So  then,  with 
the  help  of  God,  thou  shalt  come  to  the  greater  heights 
of  doctrine  and  of  virtue,  of  which  we  have  spoken 
above.  Amen!  Explicit  Regula." 

In  a  moment  we  shall  speak  of  the  effects  of  the  Rule, 
but  first  it  was  necessary  that  one  complementary  thing 
should  be  added.  The  organization  was  there,  the  re- 
quirement of  mental  labor  was  there,  but  the  actual 
copying  and  preservation  of  manuscripts  were  not  speci- 
fied. These  elements  come  into  existence  at  the  same 
time,  but  in  two  places  very  far  apart  in  the  Western 
world,  at  Scyllacaeum,  in  southern  Italy,  and  at  Aries,  in 
southern  France.  The  monastery  at  Squillace  (Scylla- 
caeum) was  founded  by  Cassiodorus  the  Senator,  the 
Chancellor  of  Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth.  Born  about  the 
same  year  as  Benedict,  he  retired  from  active  life  about 
540,  when  he  was  sixty  years  old,  having  spent  forty 


BENEDICT  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS     229 

years  in  the  service  of  the  Gothic  Court.  Feeling  that 
in  a  certain  sense  his  life  had  been  wasted,  he  became 
a  monk  and  retired  to  his  beloved  Calabria,  where 
he  turned  his  ancestral  villa  into  a  monastery,  famous 
for  its  copying-room,  and  especially  for  its  book-bind- 
ing, where  "  the  wedding  garments"  for  books  were 
made,  and  where  he  labored  for  thirty- three  years,  until 
his  death.  A  similar  copying-room  was  introduced  by 
the  Abbess  Caesaria  at  Aries  at  about  this  same  time  or 
somewhat  earlier. 

As  for  the  success  of  Benedict's  Rule  it  was  not  in 
rivalry  to  any  existing  rules,  but  only  in  completion  of 
them.  Hence  it  met  with  little  or  no  opposition,  and 
soon  became  so  universal  in  Western  Europe  that  the 
Council  of  Aix  (862)  proclaimed  it  the  only  rule. 

Thus  the  Benedictines  stepped  forward  into  modern 
Europe.  They  carried  not  only  the  cross  and  the  plow; 
they  carried  also  the  pen.  They  were  not  only  the  great- 
est missionaries,  they  were  not  only  the  greatest  farmers, 
they  were  also  the  scholars  and  the  schoolmasters. 
They  carried  Christianity,  but  they  carried  it  in  peace- 
ful union  with  ancient  culture.  In  England,  Germany, 
Denmark,  Sweden,  Poland,  Bohemia,  they  did  the  work 
of  intellectual  pioneers;  and  during  the  sixth,  seventh, 
eighth  and  ninth  centuries  they  not  only  converted 
Europe,  but  they  also  civilized  her.  Theirs  was  not  sim- 
ply the  work  of  copying  the  classics ;  they  were  also  the 
historians  and  librarians  of  Europe.  Think  only  of  York 


230    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

in  the  seventh  century,  and  of  Farfa  in  the  eleventh. 
Think  of  the  printing-press  at  Subiaco,  and  that  at 
Westminster.  Go  back  again  to  the  tenth  century,  and 
see  one  of  the  world's  great  writers,  Hrotswitha,  the 
Benedictine  abbess  of  Gandersheim  (935-1001);  and 
look  in  the  eleventh  century  at  the  renewal  of  the  world 
which  came  forth  from  the  monastery  of  Clairvaux  in 
France,  and  the  abbey  of  Quedlinburg  in  Germany. 

The  Gothic  Kingdom  might  fail,  but  the  heritage  of 
the  past  was  not  to  be  lost,  and  the  little  boy  who  had  fled 
away  from  the  wickedness  of  Rome,  now  grown  to  be  a 
man,  with  his  companions,  on  the  site  of  the  temple  of 
Apollo,  was  to  do  Apollo's  bidding  as  well  as  Christ's  in 
keeping  alive  for  the  world  that  "sweetness  and  light" 
which  was  no  enemy  of  Him,  who  came  not  to  destroy 
but  to  build  up. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS:   THE  PREPARATION   FOR 
THE  HOLY  ROMAN   EMPIRE 

WE  reach  to-day  our  journey's  end.  It  seems  a  very 
short  time  since  we  stood  at  the  beginning  of  that  jour- 
ney, at  the  other  end  of  the  path,  and  beheld  it  stretching 
before  us.  We  were  standing  then  in  the  midst  of  a  very 
primitive  people,  devoid  entirely  of  what  we  call  cul- 
ture in  the  larger  sense.  They  were  so  crude  and  their 
faces  were  so  entirely  turned  to  the  ground,  their  con- 
sciousness was  so  saturated  with  purely  physical  needs, 
that  they  had  not  as  yet  acquired  even  a  rudimentary 
sense  of  patriotism.  We  have  followed  these  people 
through  the  great  educational  processes  which  history 
brought  them.  We  saw  them  nursed  into  the  religion  of 
patriotism  by  the  Etruscans ;  we  saw  them  tutored  into 
the  religion  of  beauty  by  the  Greeks.  We  admired  their 
power  of  adaptation  in  entertaining  these  foreign  ideas, 
but  we  saw  also  the  disadvantages  which  are  inevitably 
connected  with  such  foreign  importations.  Their  simple 
and  practical  scheme  of  religion  became  entangled  by 
the  luxurious  overgrowth  of  superstition,  and  all  that 
was  necessary  to  turn  their  over-faith  into  under-faith 
-  that  is,  scepticism  —  was  an  excess  of  material  pros- 
perity. The  Punic  Wars  brought  this  prosperity  and  the 
decline  of  faith  followed. 


232    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

But  while  prosperity  caused  faith  to  decline,  it  aroused 
men  to  a  sense  of  individuality.  Thus  individualism  in 
other  things  and  also  in  religion  came  into  the  life  of 
Rome.    To  meet  this  new  religious  need,  there  were 
present  two  sources  of  supply:  on  the  one  hand,  phil- 
osophy; on  the  other,  the  cults  of  the  Orient.    We 
watched  the  struggle  of  these  rival  ideas,  and  saw  the 
victory  of  Christianity.  But  after  this  preliminary  con- 
quest, a  more  intense  struggle  took  place,  the  struggle 
between  the  ancient  culture  and  the  new  religion.  Then 
Rome  began  to  be  divided  against  herself;  Constanti- 
nople was  born  and  assumed  the  dignity  of  the  capital. 
The  East  became  separated  from  the  West.  In  the  West 
itself,  Milan  and  Ravenna  began  to  surpass  Rome.  And 
all  the  while  beneath  these  divisions  there  were  still  other 
divisions.  There  was  the  great  schism  between  the  old 
ideas  and  the  new ;  between  the  old  instincts  of  patri- 
otism and  social  solidarity  and  the  new  ideas,  which, 
whatever  they  may  have  been  in  theory,  were  in  prac- 
tice extraordinarily  self-centred  and  anti-social.   There 
was  an  organized  government  and  a  system  of  laws 
which,  all  of  it,  harked  back  to  paganism,  and  there  was 
a  new  religion  whose  most  earnest  devotees  were  inter- 
ested principally  in  the  saving  of  their  own  souls  and 
the  flight  from  the  temptations  of  this  present  evil  world. 
And  lastly,  with  the  weakness  of  Rome,  her  borders 
ceased  to  be  defended,  and  the  Teutonic  tribes,  which 
had  long  been  pressing  against  her  gates,  broke  through 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      233 

and  overran  Italy.  Thus  the  Visigoth  and  the  Vandal 
robbed  and  pillaged  Rome,  while  those  who  might  have 
been  her  citizens  and  her  defenders  were  saving  their 
own  souls  in  the  desert  and  the  cloister.  Yet  so  great 
was  the  love  that  ancient  culture  called  forth,  and  so 
resistant  was  she  in  her  struggle  for  life,  that  these 
apparently  tender  things,  these  methods  of  thought, 
these  legal  ideas,  these  literary  expressions,  were  able, 
at  least  in  great  part,  to  survive  this  turmoil.  They  kept 
their  hold  on  the  minds  of  at  least  the  intellectual 
fathers  of  the  church,  they  won  the  respect  of  the  Ostro- 
goths, and  they  gained  access  even  to  the  monasteries, 
where  man  had  gone  to  escape  the  world.  In  our  last 
lecture  we  have  seen  how,  granted  the  inevitableness 
of  monasticism,  Benedict's  Rule  saved  the  day  for  an- 
cient literature. 

But  in  our  gratitude  for  the  existence  of  this  great 
salvation,  we  overlooked  the  hard  fact,  that,  though  the 
monastery  could  secure  the  actual  physical  preservation 
of  literature,  and  though  its  teachings  might  keep  alive 
a  love  of  the  spirit  as  well  as  the  letter,  so  that  the  copy- 
ist's heart  would  follow  his  pen,  nevertheless  the  laws 
and  institutions  of  the  Roman  Empire  could  not  be 
compressed  within  the  limits  of  a  cloister.  Greek  art 
and  Greek  literature  have  been  preserved,  but  Greece 
in  its  atmosphere  and  in  its  institutions  has  been  lost. 
Thus  Rome  might  have  been  preserved  in  her  literature, 
and  her  law  books  might  have  been  copied  to  infinity, 


234    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

but  the  living  impress  of  Rome  would  have  been  lost. 
Only  an  established  state  could  inherit  the  tradition 
of  a  state ;  it  could  live  in  a  government  with  temporal 
power;  it  would  die  under  the  cloistered  rule  of  a  monas- 
tery. 

There  is,  therefore,  one  chapter  still  left  in  our  story. 
In  it  we  are  to  study  the  rise  of  this  temporal  power, 
which  was  to  carry  on  the  form  of  Rome  which  the 
monastery  could  not  contain ;  while  the  monastery  was 
to  preserve  the  spirit  which  this  temporal  power  might 
or  might  not  preserve.  The  rise  of  this  power  is  one  oi 
the  most  wonderful  things  in  the  world's  history;  in  a 
sense  we  can  scarcely  hope  to  understand  it,  but  we  can 
come  near  to  an  understanding  by  studying  the  outward 
phenomena,  which  are  quite  clear.  To  do  this,  however 
we  must  go  afield,  far  to  the  north,  and  study  the  rise 
and  history  of  the  Lombards. 

The  Lombards,  or  Langobardi,  whose  original  name 
seems  to  have  been  the  Winili,  were  settled  originally  ir 
Scandinavia.  Later  they  moved  to  the  mouth  of  th( 
Elbe,  where  their  presence  is  attested  by  the  geograph 
ical  name  Bardengau,  obviously  an  abbreviation  foi 
Langobardengau.  We  hear  of  them,  in  A.D.  165,  a: 
crossing  the  Danube,  and  being  defeated  by  the  Roman; 
and  then  for  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  they  pas: 
entirely  out  of  history,  until  the  time  of  Anastasiu 
(491-518). 

In  the  reign  of  their  king,  Audoin,  Justinian  made  ai 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      235 

alliance  with  them,  and  they  were  permitted  to  settle  in 
Noricum.  But  our  real  interest  in  them  begins  with 
Audoin's  son,  Alboin,  for  it  was  under  his  leadership 
that  on  April  2,  568,  they  began  their  invasion  of  Italy. 
According  to  tradition  they  came  by  invitation  of  Jus- 
tinian's general,  Narses.  But  too  much  weight  should 
not  be  attached  to  such  stories  of  invitations.  The  Lom- 
bards seem  to  have  crossed  the  Alps  by  way  of  Villach 
and  the  Predil  Pass,  and  thus  they  overran  Venetia,  and 
conquered  Vicenza  and  Verona  without  difficulty.  They 
then  did  a  thing  which  none  of  their  predecessors  had 
done,  and  which  was  an  omen  of  the  fact  that  they  had 
come  to  abide  in  Italy,  and  not  to  march  away  of  their 
own  will  as  the  Visigoths  had,  or  to  be  driven  away  as 
were  the  Ostrogoths.  They  shut,  as  it  were,  the  door 
behind  them.  This  they  accomplished  by  establishing 
the  duchy  of  Forum  Julii,  with  Gisulf,  the  king's  nephew 
as  first  duke,  equipping  him  with  a  picked  body  of 
followers.  Within  the  next  three  years,  Milan  and 
Pavia  had  both  surrendered;  and  then,  suddenly,  at 
the  height  of  his  power,  Alboin  was  brutally  murdered 

(572). 

After  two  years  of  confusion,  the  Lombards  aban- 
doned the  idea  of  having  a  king;  and  Italy  was  ruled  by 
an  oligarchy  of  the  "Thirty-six  Lombard  Dukes."  This 
arrangement  lasted  for  ten  years.  Thus  were  established 
in  Italy  thirty-six  allied  duchies,  out  of  which  in  the 
course  of  time  the  city-states  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  of 


236    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  Renaissance  were  to  arise.  So  deep  were  these  divi- 
sions to  be  impressed  on  the  popular  mind,  and  so  strong 
was  the  instinct  of  the  city-state  to  become,  that  even 
to-day,  in  the  presence  of  the  miracle  of  United  Italy 
men  are  first  of  all  Milanese  or  Siennese,  and  only  sec- 
ondly Italians,  and  their  "country,"  their  real  "paese," 
is  the  old  city-state. 

Thus  the  Lombards  were  accomplishing  already  a 
great  work  of  differentiation.  By  their  system  of  duch- 
ies they  were  laying  the  foundations  for  the  rise  of  the 
little  city-states,  which  were  to  give  an  object  for  the 
exercise  of  that  patriotism,  which  with  the  best  will  in 
the  world  could  no  longer  cling  to  the  ghost  of  the  Ro- 
man Empire.  Then,  too,  in  this  division  of  Italy  was  to 
lie  its  strength,  and  the  distribution  of  responsible  tasks 
among  relatively  few  men.  was  to  .produce  the  many- 
sided  genius  of  the  Renaissance. 

But  the  Lombard  Oligarchy  was  not  only  laying  the 
foundations  of  this  distant  Italy;  it  was  also  preparing 
the  way  for  the  rise  of  the  new  Roman  Empire,  and  it 
was  doing  this  quite  unconsciously  by  the  invasion  of 
Gaul,  and  the  harassing  of  the  Franks.  For  when  in  the 
course  of  time  the  Franks  came  to  save  the  Pope  from 
the  hands  of  the  unspeakable  Lombards,  they  came,  not 
simply  because  they  were  the  "most  Christian  Franks," 
and  because  they  loved  the  Pope,  but  they  came  even 
more  for  hatred  of  the  Lombards.  Thus  the  Lombards 
by  their  present  invasions  were  raising  against  them- 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS   237 

selves  a  hatred  which  was  in  the  course  of  time  to  be 
turned  to  the  profit  of  the  Papacy.  , 
/  The  rule  of  the  Oligarchy  came  to  an  end  in  584,  when 
the  Lombards  chose  Flavius  Authari,  the  son  of  Cleph, 
to  be  their  king.  In  the  sixth  year  of  his  reign,  Authari 
married  Theudelinda,  the  daughter  of  Garibaldi,  the 
Duke  of  the  Bavarians.  There  is  a  promise  of  modern 
Italy  in  the  father's  name.  In  the  following  year  (590) 
Authari  died  at  Pavia. 

ir;  His  death  brings  Theudelinda  into  the  centre  of  the 
picture,  for  the  Lombards  were  so  attached  to  her  that 
they  wished  her  to  remain  as  queen,  and  promised  that 
he  to  whom  she  should  give  her  hand  should  be  the 
king.  She  chose  a  certain  Agilulf,  the  Duke  of  Turin 
(dux  Taurinatium) ,  and  he  was  made  king  at  Milan  in 
590,  in  the  presence  of  all  the  Lombards.  If  we  may 
trust  the  legend,  Theudelinda  solved  in  a  charming  way 
the  difficulty  of  the  position  in  which  a  queen  is  placed 
who  must  of  necessity  choose  her  own  husband.  She 
summoned  to  herself  Agilulf  and  when  he  arrived,  she 
met  him  as  was  the  custom  with  the  cup  of  welcome. 
As  he  took  it  from  her  hand,  he  touched  her  hand  with 
his  lips  in  sign  of  homage;  but  straightway  she  said  to 
him,  "Why  should  he  kiss  my  hand,  who  has  the  right 
to  kiss  my  lips?  "  Then  the  Duke  knew  that  he  had  been 
chosen  as  her  husband. 

It  was  at  Monza,  near  Milan,  that  Theudelinda  caused 
a  palace  to  be  built,  and  its  walls  to  be  decorated  with 


238    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  deeds  of  the  Lombards.  "And  in  this  painting," 
says  Paul  the  Deacon,  "it  is  clearly  shown  in  what 
fashion  the  Lombards  in  those  days  trimmed  the  hair  on 
their  head,  and  of  what  fashion  their  clothing  and  their 
garments  were.  For  they  left  the  back  of  their  neck 
bare,  shaving  it  up  to  the  top  of  the  head,  and  they  let 
their  hair  hang  down  in  front  as  far  as  the  mouth,  part- 
ing it  on  the  forehead.  Their  clothes  were  loose-cut  and 
mostly  of  linen,  such  as  the  Saxons  are  accustomed 
to  wear,  and  they  had  borders  of  various  colors.  Their 
boots  were  open  to  the  end  of  the  great  toe,  and  held 
together  by  cross-lacing."  We  can  see  them  clearly  be- 
fore our  eyes,  and  in  them  we  behold  the  Dante,  and  the 
Anselm,  and  the  Lanfranc  with  which  they  were  to  en- 
dow Italy. 

But  this  endowment  was  yet  a  long  way  off.  Theude- 
linda  was,  however,  preparing  the  way  for  it,  and  all 
because  she  happened  to  be  Orthodox  and  not  Arian. 
The  single  year  of  her  married  life  with  Authari  did  not 
suffice  to  enable  her  to  influence  his  religion.  But  with 
Agilulf  she  was  more  successful,  for,  although  he  did  not 
abandon  the  Arian  faith  of  his  fathers,  he  was  on  terms 
of  friendship  with  the  leaders  of  the  Catholic  faith,  and 
even  went  so  far  as  to  permit  Theudelinda  to  have  her 
son  baptized  a  Catholic.  Agilulf  reigned  for  twenty-five 
years  (590-615),  and  it  is  during  his  reign  that  the 
figure  of  Gregory  comes  into  prominence.  To  him  we 
now  turn. 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      239 

The  best  source  for  Gregory's  life  is  the  collection  of 
his  own  letters  in  twelve  books,  but  we  have  also  the  life 
which  Paul  the  Deacon  wrote  of  him  about  770,  a  life 
by  John  the  Deacon  a  century  later  (872),  a  famous 
chapter  in  Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History,  and  certain 
passages  in  Gregory  of  Tours'  History  of  the  Franks. 

The  dates  of  Gregory's  life  until  he  was  made  pope, 
in  590,  are  very  uncertain.  He  was  born  apparently 
about  the  year  540,  of  a  noble  Roman  family.  His 
father,  Gordian,  was  a  Regionarius,  that  is,  a  lay  assist- 
ant to  the  deacon  who  had  charge  of  one  of  the  seven 
ecclesiastical  regions  into  which  the  city  of  Rome  had 
been  divided.  It  was  a  position  of  political  importance, 
and  in  this  case  its  incumbent  occupied  a  palace  on  the 
Cselian. 

Gregory's  family  were  involved  in  the  religious  fer- 
vor of  the  age,  and  in  the  tendency  to  flee  from  the 
world.  No  less  than  three  of  his  aunts  went  into  con- 
vents, but  in  one  of  them  the  love  of  the  world  was 
sufficiently  strong  to  cause  her  to  come  out  again  and 
marry.  This  healthy  love  of  the  world  seems  also  to 
have  been  characteristic  of  Gregory.  He  had  a  good 
education  in  Latin,  but  knew  no  Greek,  and  seems  never 
to  have  learned  it.  This  fact  is  impressive  when  we 
recollect  that  he  was  later  six  or  seven  years  in  Constan- 
tinople. It  shows  us  how  thoroughly  Latin  was  still  the 
language  of  the  Court.  We  know  very  little  of  his  child- 
hood, but  if  it  were  spent  in  Rome,  it  must  have  been 


240    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

a  troubled  one,  for  these  are  the  years  of  Totila's  re- 
peated sieges  and  of  the  temporary  abandonment  of  the 
city. 

Almost  the  first  known  event  in  his  life  dates  from 
about  573,  when  he  was  already  thirty-three  years  of 
age.  In  that  year  he  held  the  office  of  Prefect  of  the  city 
of  Rome.  Although  with  the  great  decline  of  Rome,  this 
office  must  have  been  deprived  of  much  of  its  signifi- 
cance, it  is  probable  that  it  had  not  lost  much  of  its 
magnificence,  though  the  symbols  of  that  magnificence 
might  well  have  grown  threadbare  and  shabby.  The 
Prefect  of  Rome  was  a  very  great  personage.  He  was 
President  of  the  Senate,  and  went  about  clad  in  purple 
and  fine  linen  and  wearing  a  sword.  When  he  drove,  it 
was  in  a  stately  carriage  drawn  by  four  horses,  decked 
out  with  silver  ornaments.  He  was  in  charge  of  all  the 
phases  of  the  life  of  the  city,  from  the  control  of  the  po- 
lice to  the  distribution  of  the  corn.  We  cannot,  of  course, 
tell  how  much  of  these  glories  may  have  passed  away 
before  Gregory's  day.  In  any  case  he  still  held  the  civil 
power  entirely  in  his  hands,  while  the  magister  militum 
had  the  political  and  military  power. 

In  the  midst  of  these  years  of  active  and  honorable 
secular  life,  the  call  of  the  other- worldliness  came  to  him, 
and  he  became  a  monk,  and,  as  Paul  the  Deacon  says  of 
him,  "He  who  had  been  accustomed  before  to  walk 
through  the  city  clothed  in  the  purple-bordered  toga, 
adorned  with  glittering  jewels  and  wearing  silken  rai- 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      241 

ment,  was  now  a  poor  man  ministering  to  the  poor;  and 
clad  in  a  wretched  garment."  We  have  no  knowledge 
in  his  case,  as  in  that  of  Augustine,  as  to  what  inward 
struggles  had  taken  place  in  his  soul.  The  passion  for 
the  monastic  life  was  very  great  at  this  time.  Later, 
when  he  had  become  pope,  there  were  more  than  three 
thousand  nuns  in  the  city  of  Rome  itself  who  shared  in 
the  patrimony  of  Saint  Peter,  and  the  number  of  monks 
was  of  course  very  much  larger  still. 

He  threw  himself  entirely  into  this  new  life,  and  be- 
sides founding  and  endowing  six  Benedictine  convents 
in  Sicily,  he  turned  his  father's  house  on  the  Clivus 
Scaurus  into  a  monastery  and  dedicated  it  to  the  Apostle 
Andrew.  This  monastery  was  perhaps  on  the  site  of 
the  present  Church  of  S.  Gregorio.  The  number  of 
monks  in  Rome  had  increased  greatly  because  of  the 
attacks  which  the  Lombards  were  wont  to  make  on 
lonely  monasteries,  as,  for  example,  on  Monte  Cassino, 
which  was  attacked  just  about  this  time  (577)  and  lay 
in  ruins  for  one  hundred  and  forty  years. 

As  for  Gregory,  having  given  away  all  that  he  had, 
he  became  a  monk  in  his  own  monastery.  There  he 
allowed  himself  only  the  one  luxury  of  a  single  piece  of 
plate,  a  silver  dish,  in  which  he  ate  the  food  which  his 
mother  prepared  for  him.  But  one  day  a  shipwrecked 
sailor  came  to  him  and  asked  him  for  alms;  he  came 
again,  and  again  a  third  time;  and  Gregory,  having 
nothing  else,  gave  him  the  silver  dish. 


242    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

It  was  at  this  time  that  those  things  happened  to  him 
of  which  Bede  tells  in  the  Ecclesiastical  History.  The 
story  is  old  and  familiar,  and  has  sometimes  been 
doubted,  without  sufficient  reason ;  the  word-plays  in  it 
are  absolutely  characteristic  of  Gregory  and  his  age. 
I  quote  the  incident  in  the  quaint  translation  by  Giles 
(Hist.Eccl.  n,  i):  — 

It  is  reported  that  some  merchants,  having  just  arrived  at 
Rome  on  a  certain  day,  exposed  many  things  for  sale  in  the 
marketplace,  and  abundance  of  people  resorted  thither  to 
buy:  Gregory  himself  went  with  the  rest,  and  among  other 
things  some  boys  were  set  for  sale,  their  bodies  white,  their 
countenances  beautiful,  and  their  hair  very  fine.  Having 
viewed  them,  he  asked,  as  is  said,  from  what  country  or  na- 
tion were  they  brought,  and  was  told  from  the  island  of  Brit- 
ain, whose  inhabitants  were  of  such  personal  appearance. 
He  again  inquired  whether  those  islanders  were  Christians,  or 
still  involved  in  the  errors  of  paganism,  and  was  informed  that 
they  were  pagans.  Then,  fetching  a  deep  sigh  from  the  bot- 
tom of  his  heart,  "Alas, what  pity,"  said  he,  "that  the  author 
of  darkness  is  possessed  of  men  of  such  fair  countenances ;  and 
that,  being  remarkable  for  such  graceful  aspects,  their  minds 
should  be  void  of  inward  grace."  He  therefore  again  asked, 
what  was  the  name  of  that  nation,  and  was  answered  that 
they  were  called  Angles.  " Right,"  said  he,  "for  they  have  an 
angelic  face,  and  it  becomes  such  to  be  coheirs  with  the  angels 
in  heaven.  What  is  the  name,"  proceeded  he,  "of  the  pro- 
vince from  which  they  are  brought?"  It  was  replied  that  the 
natives  of  that  province  were  called  Deiri.  "  Truly  are  they 
Deiri,"  said  he,  "withdrawn  from  wrath,  and  called  to  the 
mercy  of  Christ.  How  is  the  king  of  that  province  called?" 
They  told  him  his  name  was  Aella;  and  he,  alluding  to  the 
name,  said,  "  Hallelujah,  the  praise  of  God,  the  Creator,  must 
be  sung  in  those  parts." 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      243 

It  was  Gregory  himself  who  started  on  this  mission- 
ary journey.  On  the  third  day,  while  he  and  his  com- 
panions were  taking  their  noontide  rest,  a  grasshopper 
lighted  on  the  pages  of  the  Bible,  which  Gregory  was 
reading.  "Ecce  locus ta,"  said  he;  "loco  sta"  (abide  in 
this  place),  and  thus  he  interpreted  the  omen  to  his 
companions;  and  shortly  afterwards,  before  they  had 
started  again,  messengers  from  Rome  overtook  them, 
bearing  the  commands  of  the  Pope  that  Gregory  should 
return.  Thus  ended  his  missionary  journey.  The  story 
is  probably  true,  and  we  have  already  seen  Gregory's 
fondness  for  word-plays.  This  passion  was  the  last 
estate  of  the  long  rhetorical  training  of  the  Empire. 

When  Gregory  returned  to  Rome,  the  Pope  appointed 
him  "Seventh  Deacon/'  We  do  not  know  exactly  what 
the  office  of  Seventh  Deacon  was,  but  it  must  have  had 
some  connection  with  the  seven  regions  of  Rome,  each 
one  of  which  was  under  the  care  of  a  deacon.  The  Sev- 
enth Deacon  seems  to  have  been  the  most  important  of 
all,  and  the  position  may  have  been  regarded  as  leading 
to  the  Papacy.  In  578,  Pope  Benedict  (the  First)  died, 
and  was  succeeded  by  Pelagius  the  Second  (578-90), 
that  pope  who  restored  the  Church  of  S.  Lorenzo,  and 
whose  name  still  stands  on  the  triumphal  arch.  Pelagius 
seems  to  have  recognized  Gregory's  ability,  for  he  imme- 
diately appointed  him  to  one  of  the  two  most  important 
diplomatic  positions  in  the  church,  sending  him  as 
Nuncio  (Apocrisiarius)  to  Constantinople.  At  this  time 


244    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

the  Roman  Church  had  two  nuncios,  one  at  Ravenna 
with  the  Exarch,  and  .one  at  Constantinople  with  the 
Emperor.  Of  these  the  post  at  Constantinople  was  the 
more  important.  Gregory  continued  at  Constantinople 
five  or  six  years,  and,  while  retaining  his  own  interest  in 
Rome  as  over  against  the  East,  and  cherishing  a  con- 
tempt for  Eastern  methods  and  manners,  he  neverthe- 
less succeeded  in  making  friendships  in  the  Imperial 
Court,  especially  with  the  Empress  Constantina.  These 
years  in  Constantinople  were  of  great  importance  in 
Gregory's  life,  for  it  was  then  that  he  learned  the  entire 
indifference  of  the  Eastern  Empire  to  the  affairs  of 
Rome,  and  the  hopeless  incompatibility  of  the  Eastern 
and  the  Western  churches. 

During  these  years  the  Empire  was  so  occupied  with 
its  wars  against  the  Persians  that  it  had  no  time  to 
attend  to  the  affairs  of  Italy.  In  vain  Pope  Pelagius 
wrote  to  Gregory,  urging  him  to  make  representations 
to  the  Emperor,  that  without  his  help  "The  Republic" 
could  no  longer  be  saved.  This  harking  back  of  the 
phrase  "The  Republic"  is  almost  ghastly  in  the  remi- 
niscences which  it  calls  up,  pictures  of  those  long-ago 
days  when  the  "Consuls  were  bidden  to  see  to  it  that 
the  Republic  suffered  no  ill";  and  now  this  Republic  is 
beseeching  an  emperor  at  Constantinople,  who  has  never 
seen  Rome,  to  grant  a  magister  militum  and  a  dux  for 
their  protection.  But  these  messages  sent  eastward 
proved  of  no  avail,  and  so  Pelagius  shot  an  arrow  west- 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      245 

ward  at  a  venture.  Turning  to  France,  he  wrote  to  the 
Bishop  of  Auxerre:  "  For  we  believe  that  for  no  other 
reason  has  it  been  ordained  by  Divine  Providence,  that 
your  kings  should  hold  the  same  orthodox  confession  of 
faith  as  the  Roman  Empire,  save  that  they  might  be 
neighbors  and  helpers  to  this  city,  where  this  faith 
arose,  and  also  to  the  whole  of  Italy." 

These  letters,  coming  as  they  do  side  by  side,  are  of 
great  importance,  for  they  show  that  the  diplomacy 
which  afterwards  resulted  in  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
did  not  grow  up  in  the  mind  of  any  one  man,  but  was  a 
natural  product  of  inevitable  conditions. 

About  585,  Gregory  returned  to  Rome,  and  became 
abbot  of  his  own  monastery  of  Saint  Andrew.  For  the 
next  five  years  we  have  no  accurate  knowledge  of  his 
life.  They  were  dark  and  troubled  years  .for  the  city  of 
Rome.  She  was  surrounded  by  the  unspeakable  Lom- 
bards, who  were  constantly  pressing  closer  to  her  bor- 
ders, and  her  territory  was  almost  limited  to  that  of  the 
later  Papal  States.  But  war  was  not  her  only  adversary  ; 
floods  and  pestilence  were  in  her  borders.  Gregory  of 
Tours  gives  us  the  account  of  an  eye-witness,  a  deacon, 
whom  he  had  sent  to  Rome,  and  who  returned  to  him, 
relating  that  "in  the  ninth  month  of  the  last  year  (589) 
the  river  Tiber  so  overflowed  its  banks  and  covered  the 
city  of  Rome  that  the  ancient  buildings  fell  in  ruins, 
and  even  the  granaries  of  the  church,  and  many  thou- 
sand bushels  of  grain  were  destroyed.*'  He  also  told 


246    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

of  a  multitude  of  snakes  and  a  great  dragon  which 
passed  down  the  bed  of  the  Tiber,  and  how  the  cattle 
were  drowned  by  a  tidal  wave  and  thrown  up  on  the 
shore.  After  the  flood  came  the  pestilence.  This  pesti- 
lence, coming  up  out  of  Egypt,  had  appeared  at  Con- 
stantinople a  half  century  before.  It  caused  a  terror 
which  can  only  be  likened  to  that  of  the  Black  Death. 
In  590  it  raged  in  Rome,  as  it  had  never  raged  there 
before,  and  threatened  to  destroy  the  entire  population. 
In  February  the  Pope  Pelagius  died  of  the  plague,  and 
the  people  insisted  that  Gregory  should  be  his  successor. 
But  Gregory  refused,  and  sent  a  letter  to  the  Emperor 
Maurice  to  Constantinople,  beseeching  him  to  withhold 
his  confirmation  of  the  election ;  for  without  the  approval 
of  the  Emperor  the  Bishop  of  Rome  could  not  be  conse- 
crated. But  this  attempt  on  Gregory's  part  to  escape 
the  office  was  of  no  avail;  for  the  Prefect  of  the  city, 
learning  of  the  matter,  sent  other  letters  urging  the 
Emperor  to  confirm  the  election,  and  his  messenger 
overtook  the  messenger  of  Gregory  and  substituted  this 
letter  for  the  one  which  Gregory  had  written. 

Meantime,  while  they  were  awaiting  the  answer, 
Gregory  was  temporarily  intrusted  with  the  duties  of 
pope.  The  chief  concern  of  the  city  was  the  alarming 
ravages  of  the  pestilence.  On  August  29,  Gregory 
preached  in  the  Church  of  Santa  Sabina,  on  the  Aven- 
tine,  and  his  text  was  Jeremiah  iv,  10:  "The  sword 
reacheth  unto  the  soul."  Amidst  the  ravages  of  the  pes- 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS        247 

tilence,  and  the  oppression  of  the  dog-days,  —  that 
peculiarly  discouraging  heat,  which  only  a  Roman  sum- 
mer day  brings  forth,  —  it  is  no  wonder  that  his  words 
were  not  forgotten  by  those  who  heard  them,  and  that 
one  of  the  audience,  a  certain  deacon  of  Tours,  remem- 
bered the  discourse  so  well  that  when  he  returned  home, 
he  repeated  it  to  his  bishop,  Gregory  of  Tours,  in  whose 
History  of  the  Franks  (x,  i)  it  has  been  preserved  to  us, 
as  well  as  in  Gregory's  own  works.  I  quote  a  passage 
from  it,  not  only  because  it  affords  a  good  illustration  of 
the  power  of  Gregory's  style,  for  he  must  have  been  a 
great  orator;  but  also  because  it  illustrates  the  continu- 
ance of  the  traditions  of  the  classical  school  of  rhetoric. 

Dearly  beloved  Brethren,  the  judgments  of  God,  which  we 
have  been  taught  that  we  ought  to  fear  for  the  future,  are  now 
in  our  midst  and  fearfully  to  be  dreaded ;  and  may  grief  open 
up  to  us  the  way  of  repentance,  and  may  the  hardness  of  our 
hearts  be  softened  by  the  sufferings  which  we  endure.  It 
was  foretold  of  old  by  the  prophet,  "the  sword  has  reached 
even  unto  the  soul."  For  behold  the  whole  people  is  smtiten 
by  the  sword  of  the  wrath  of  God,  and  one  by  one  they  are  laid 
low  by  sudden  death.  Languor  does  not  precede  death, 
but,  as  you  see,  death  itself  anticipates  lingering  languor.  For 
each  one,  struck  down,  is  snatched  away  before  he  can  turn 
to  the  lamentations  of  repentance.  And  what  appearance 
would  he  make  before  his  judge,  the  man  who  has  had  no 
chance  to  repent  his  deeds?  It  is  not  merely  some  of  the  in- 
habitants who  are  being  taken  away,  but  all  alike  are  rushing 
to  destruction.  The  houses  are  left  empty,  fathers  behold  the 
funerals  of  their  sons,  and  one's  heirs  precede  him  to  the 
grave.  Let  each  one  of  us,  therefore,  take  refuge  in  wailing 
and  penitence,  while  there  is  still  time  to  weep,  ere  we  die.  Let 


248     RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

us  recall  before  the  eyes  of  our  mind  whatever  errors  we  have 
committed,  and  let  us  repent  in  tears  for  our  evil  deeds.  Let 
us  come  before  Him  in  confession,  and,  as  the  prophet  com- 
mands, let  us  raise  our  hearts  with  our  hands  unto  the  Lord. 
For  he  giveth  courage  for  our  prayer,  He  who  cries  through 
the  mouth  of  his  prophet,  "  I  have  no  pleasure  in  the  death  of 
the  wicked,  but  that  the  wicked  turn  from  his  way  and  live." 
Moreover,  let  none  of  us  despair  because  of  the  magnitude 
of  his  evil  deeds.  For  a  three  days'  penitence  purified  even  the 
men  of  Nineveh  from  their  slothful  sinfulness.  And  the  thief 
that  repented  received  the  rewards  of  eternal  life,  even  in  the 
very  article  of  death.  Let  us,  therefore,  experience  a  change  of 
heart  and  believe  that  we  have  already  received  what  we 
seek.  .  .  .  And  since  the  sword  of  such  great  punishment  is 
hanging  over  us,  let  us  beseech  him  with  importunate  weeping, 
for  that  very  importunity  which  is  wont  to  be  displeasing  to 
men  finds  favor  with  the  judge  of  truth.  The  pious  and 
merciful  God  wishes  us  to  pray  to  Him  for  pardon,  for  He  is 
not  willing  to  be  angry  with  us  according  to  our  transgressions. 
Thus,  He  speaks  through  the  mouth  of  the  Psalmist:  "Call 
upon  me  in  the  day  of  trouble,  I  will  deliver  thee,  and  thou 
shalt  glorify  me."  He  therefore  is  a  witness  unto  Himself  that 
He  desires  to  have  mercy  upon  those  who  call  upon  Him,  be- 
cause He  admonishes  us  that  He  would  be  called  upon.  There- 
fore, dearest  brethren,  with  contrite  hearts  and  due  repen- 
tance, and  with  the  mind  prepared  for  tears,  come  to  the 
Sevenfold  Litany  on  the  fourth  day  of  the  week  at  dawn  in  the 
following  order.  Let  all  the  regular  clergy,  therefore,  together 
with  the  priests  of  the  sixth  region,  start  from  the  Church  of 
the  blessed  martyrs,  Cosmas  and  Damianus  [in  the  Forum]. 
And  let  all  the  abbots,  and  under  each  abbot  the  monks  of  his 
monastery,  together  with  the  priests  of  the  fourth  region,  set 
out  from  the  Church,  of  the  holy  martyrs,  Protasius  and  Ger- 
vasius  [on  the  Quirinal].  Let  all  the  abbesses,  and  under  each 
abbess  her  nuns,  together  with  the  priests  of  the  first  region, 
start  from  the  Church  of  the  holy  martyrs,  Marcellinus  and 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS       249 

Peter  [Via  Labicana,  two  miles  out].  Let  all  the  children,  to- 
gether with  the  priests  of  the  second  region,  set  out  from  the 
Church  of  the  holy  martyrs,  John  and  Paul  [on  the  Cselian]. 
Let  all  the  laymen,  together  with  the  priests  of  the  seventh 
region,  start  from  the  Church  of  the  Holy  First  Martyr 
Stephen  [near  the  Lateran].  Let  all  the  widows,  together  with 
the  priests  of  the  fifth  region,  set  out  from  the  Church  of  Saint 
Euphemia  [on  the  Viminal].  And  let  all  the  matrons,  together 
with  the  priests  of  the  third  region,  start  from  the  Church  of 
the  holy  martyr,  Clement  [near  the  Colosseum.]  Proceeding 
from  these  various  churches,  let  them  gather  together  at 
the  Basilica  of  the  Blessed  Mary,  always  a  Virgin,  Mother 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  that,  there  praying  to  God  with 
prayer  and  wailing,  we  may  prevail  to  merit  pardon  for  our 
sins. 

It  takes  no  great  effort  of  the  imagination  to  see  these 
seven  choruses  wending  their  way  through  the  streets 
of  Rome,  and  filling  the  air  with  their  chants,  each  after 
its  own  fashion,  as  men,  women,  and  children.  And  as 
we  watch  them  slowly  approaching  Santa  Maria  Mag- 
giore,  we  are  reminded  of  those  older  Roman  proces- 
sions, especially  that  one  of  the  year  B.C.  207,  when  in 
the  dread  of  the  Second  Punic  War,  three  times  nine 
maidens  sang  their  choruses,  and  the  procession  of  the 
people  followed  them  up  to  the  Aventine  to  the  temple 
of  Juno  Regina.  Then  the  material  greatness  of  Rome 
was  but  beginning,  and  now  it  was  long  past.  The  glitter 
of  gold  and  of  marble  had  come  and  gone,  and  now 
there  were  ruins  and  broken  columns.  The  physical 
greatness  of  Rome  had  come  and  gone ;  and  amidst  the 
ruins  the  strange  idea  of  spiritual  Rome  was  being 


250    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

born,  and  lamentations  and  chants  were  her  cradle- 
song. 

The  procession  itself  afforded  an  additional  proof  of 
the  severity  of  the  pestilence,  for  the  same  good  deacon 
of  Tours,  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken,  relates  that 
in  one  hour  eighty  of  those  who  were  taking  part  fell 
dead  to  the  ground.  On  the  last  day,  the  Friday  (for 
the  penance  had  begun  on  the  fourth  day  of  the  week, 
Wednesday,  and  was  to  last  three  days),  Gregory  was 
leading  the  chorus  over  the  Bridge  of  Hadrian  to  wor- 
ship at  the  tomb  of  Saint  Peter.  It  was  doubtless  in  the 
late  afternoon,  as  this  prayer  at  Saint  Peter's  grave 
would  be  a  fitting  close  to  the  three  days'  ceremonies. 
The  sun  may  have  been  setting  as  they  crossed  the 
bridge,  and  a  golden  glory  would  fill  the  sky  behind  the 
Mausoleum  of  Hadrian.  In  that  glory  Gregory  beheld 
the  angel  Michael,  with  a  flaming  two-edged  sword  in 
his  hand ;  and  as  he  looked,  the  archangel  sheathed  the 
sword.  Then  Gregory  knew  that  the  pestilence  was 
ended;  and  thenceforth  the  Mausoleum  of  Hadrian  was 
called  the  Castle  of  S.  Angelo. 

This  story  has,  of  course,  been  doubted.  It  is  not  men- 
tioned by  Paul  the  Deacon,  or  by  Bede,  and  occurs  first 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  but  if  it  did  not  happen,  it  is  a 
pity  it  did  not ;  and  in  any  case  it  is  too  beautiful  to  pass 
untold.  Nor  need  we,  with  Gregorovius,  suppose  that  a 
broken  piece  of  some  ancient  statue  gave  the  impression 
of  an  angel.  Who  would  assert  that  Gregory  did  not  see 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS       251 

an  angel,  especially  if  it  happened  at  the  sunset,  when 
the  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament 
showeth  his  handiwork? 

Shortly  after  this,  the  confirmation  of  Gregory's  elec- 
tion as  pope  arrived  from  Constantinople,  and  on  Sep- 
tember 3,  590,  he  was  consecrated  in  Saint  Peter's.  The 
story  of  his  attempts  to  escape,  by  causing  himself  to  be 
smuggled  out  of  Rome  by  merchants,  is  an  invention  of 
a  later  time,  but  we  have  one  of  his  own  letters  in  which 
he  expresses  his  sorrow  at  the  appointment.  Historians 
have  been  at  great  pains  to  analyze  his  mental  condi- 
tion, with  a  view  to  ascertaining  his  sincerity,  but  all 
men  of  the  greatness  of  Gregory  have  within  them  the 
element  of  contradiction,  and  they  are  entirely  sincere 
in  their  apparent  inconsistencies.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
price  of  genius  that  a  man  is  never  entirely  happy  in 
accepting  or  refusing  any  position  in  life. 

Thus  Gregory,  at  the  age  of  fifty,  began  his  life  as 
pope,  which  was  to  last  for  fourteen  years,  and  during 
which  he  was  to  lay  the  foundations  of  the  Holy  Roman 
Empire.  If  he  had  in  any  sense  dreaded  this  life,  be- 
cause of  its  responsibilities  and  endless  activities,  the 
life  itself  proved  the  reasonableness  of  this  dread. 

It  is  impossible  for  us  here  to  give  more  than  a  mere 
sketch  of  Gregory's  occupations.  They  were  the  mani- 
fold works  which  would  naturally  fall  to  him  who  was 
the  greatest  man  in  the  community,  especially  when 
that  community  was  troubled  without  and  within.  It 


252    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

was  not  a  question  as  to  whether  these  were  the  things 
which  a  pope  would  ordinarily  have  done  or  not;  they 
were  obviously  the  things  for  Gregory  to  do,  because 
they  had  to  be  done,  and  he  was  the  only  man  who  could 
do  them.  No  one  can  accuse  him  of  having  sought  power, 
the  power  was  his,  and  he  was  compelled  almost  against 
his  will  to  use  it. 

Let  us  consider  first  those  things  in  his  life  which 
were  the  normal  functions  of  the  Pope.  His  most  not- 
able work  here  was  the  mission  to  England.  He  seems 
never  to  have  forgotten  his  own  interrupted  journey, 
although  it  was  not  until  the  sixth  year  of  his  pontificate 
that  he  was  able  to  send  his  substitute.  In  that  year 
(596)  he  sent  Augustine,  the  abbot  of  his  own  monastery 
of  Saint  Andrew.  The  story  of  this  journey  is  intensely 
human.  When  Augustine  and  his  companions  arrived 
in  Gaul,  on  their  way  to  Britain,  they  were  so  terrified 
by  the  account  of  conditions  in  Britain,  as  described  to 
them  by  the  priests  whom  they  met  in  Gaul,  that  they 
returned  to  Rome.  But  they  were  promptly  sent  back 
again  by  Gregory,  and  this  time  they  went  to  their 
journey's  end.  Thus  timidly  did  Augustine  go  forth  to 
the  immortal  fame  of  being  the  first  Bishop  of  Canter- 
bury. The  details  of  this  mission  do  not  concern  us  here, 
except  that  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  Gregory  recog- 
nized the  fact  that  the  Christian  Church  already  existed 
in  Britain.  There  is  a  very  beautiful  letter  of  his  to 
Augustine  concerning  this  matter.  The  letter  has  been 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      253 

preserved  to  us  by  Bede  (Hist.  EccL,  I,  27),  and  I  quote 
it  in  Giles's  translation.  Augustine  is  asking  a  series  of 
questions  which  Gregory  is  answering:  - 

Augustine's  second  question:  "Whereas  the  faith  is  one  and 
the  same,  why  are  there  different  customs  in  different  churches 
and  why  is  one  custom  of  masses  observed  in  the  Holy  Roman 
Church,  and  another  in  the  Gallican  Church." 

Pope  Gregory  answers:  "You  know,  my  brother,  the  cus- 
tom of  the  Roman  Church  in  which  you  remember  you  were 
bred  up.  But  it  pleases  me  that  if  you  have  found  anything, 
either  in  the  Roman  or  the  Gallican,  or  any  other  church, 
which  may  be  more  acceptable  to  Almighty  God,  you  care- 
fully make  choice  of  the  same,  and  seduously  teach  the  Church 
of  the  English,  which  as  yet  is  new  in  the  faith,  whatsoever 
you  can  gather  from  the  several  churches.  For  things  are  not 
to  be  loved  for  the  sake  of  places,  but  places  for  the  sake  of 
good  things.  Choose,  therefore,  from  every  church  those 
things  that  are  pious,  religious,  and  upright,  and  when  you 
have,  as  it  were,  made  them  up  into  one  body,  let  the  minds  of 
the  English  be  accustomed  thereto." 

These  missionary  cares  were  but  a  small  segment  of 
Gregory's  responsibilities.  The  routine  of  his  daily  life 
was  crowded  with  his  duties  as  steward  of  the  Patrimony 
of  Saint  Peter's.  We  can  scarcely  realize  to  ourselves 
the  condition  of  Rome  at  this  time.  The  atmosphere 
was  tense  with  the  formal  observance  of  religion.  The 
old  pagan  festivals  had  gone,  except  such  of  them  as 
lived  on  under  the  guise  of  Christian  festivals.  The  idea 
of  the  end  of  the  world  was  still  foremost  in  men's  minds. 
The  tendency  toward  monastic  life  was  so  strong  that 
the  Pope  in  Rome  and  the  Emperor  in  Constantinople 


254    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

both  strove  to  repress  it.  For  those  who  were  not  in  the 
cloistered  life,  there  was  almost  nothing  left,  except  the 
army,  by  which  they  could  fill  their  time  and  support 
themselves.  Thus  the  church  in  Rome  had  begun  to  be 
an  asylum  for  all  society,  and  in  a  very  literal  sense  the 
Pope  fed  the  people. 

The  organization  of  this  charity  partook  almost  of  the 
nature  of  an  exact  science.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Pope 
was  the  richest  individual  in  Italy.  The  church  had 
large  possessions  in  Sicily,  Campania,  southern  Italy, 
Corsica,  Sardinia,  Dalmatia,  Illyricum,  and  Gaul.  These 
estates  were  all  managed  from  Rome,  and  the  amount 
of  correspondence  which  the  Pope  himself  accomplished 
can  be  properly  appreciated  only  by  those  who  examine 
the  letters  which  Gregory  has  left  behind  him.  But  the 
collection  of  the  revenues  was  only  a  small  portion  of  the 
task.  The  distribution  was  even  more  arduous.  A  sort 
of  record  seems  to  have  been  kept  in  Rome,  an  index  of 
all  persons  and  their  needs;  and  so  abject  was  the  pov- 
erty of  the  times  that  the  book  seems  to  have  contained 
the  names  of  almost  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  city.  On 
the  first  of  each  month  there  was  a  distribution  of  meal, 
clothing,  and  money.  And  every  day  there  were  sent 
out  from  the  Papal  Palace  a  large  number  of  cooked 
rations.  We  must  not  think  of  the  arrangements  as 
those  of  a  machine,  with  which  Gregory  had  nothing 
to  do.  So  personal  was  the  conduct  of  affairs  that  in 
individual  cases  he  chose  especially  delicate  dishes  for 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS   255 

those  who  in  their  earlier  days  had  been  accustomed  to 
finer  things.  It  was  Gregory  who  felt  responsible  for  all 
these  details ;  and  when  it  was  reported  to  him  one  day 
that  a  beggar  had  died  of  starvation  in  the  streets  of 
Rome,  his  remorse  was  terrible. 

But  in  spite  of  these  activities,  and  those  even  more 
serious  ones  of  which  we  shall  speak  in  a  moment,  he 
found  time  for  the  cultivation  of  music,  and  remodeled 
the  liturgy,  changing  the  music  from  the  Greek  tetra- 
chord  to  the  octave,  and  founding  two  schools  of  singers, 
one  at  the  Lateran  and  one  at  Saint  Peter's.  And  all 
this  work  was  accomplished  by  a  man  who  was  phys- 
ically unfit.  The  excessive  fastings  and  privations  of  his 
life  had  induced  in  these  latter  years  gout  and  dyspepsia ; 
and  much  of  his  work  was  done  lying  on  his  bed.  He 
even  conducted  choir  practice  in  this  position,  and  by 
the  assistance  of  a  long  rod  trained  the  choir-boys  in 
the  way  they  should  go. 

But  if  his  life  be  judged  as  a  whole,  all  these  are  seen 
to  be  only  incidental  things.  His  great  work  was  that 
which  was  forced  upon  him  by  the  political  condition  of 
Rome.  The  isolation  of  Rome,  which  had  begun  even 
before  the  founding  of  Constantinople,  had  now  reached 
its  climax.  She  was  cut  off  from  Constantinople,  not 
only  by  geographical  distance,  but  also  by  the  indiffer- 
ence of  the  Emperor;  and  she  was  separated  from  Ra- 
venna and  the  Exarch  by  the  presence  of  the  unspeak- 
able Lombards.  Nor  was  it  any  great  extent  of  territory 


256    RELIGIOUS  LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

which  Rome  might  call  her  own.  The  Lombards  were 
certainly  at  Viterbo,  and  probably  at  Narni,  and  very 
close  to  Palestrina  and  Tivoli ;  and  they  were  constantly 
pressing  forward,  so  that  Rome  never  knew  from  which 
quarter  the  attack  might  come. 

Thus,  in  592,  Rome  was  threatened  by  Ariulf,  the 
Duke  of  Spoleto,  but  in  July,  Gregory  concluded  a  peace 
with  him,  and  Rome  was  for  the  moment  saved.  When 
news  of  this  separate  peace  reached  the  Emperor,  he 
was  angry,  and  bade  Romanus,  the  Exarch  at  Ravenna, 
march  to  the  defense  of  Rome.  Romanus  was  very  suc- 
cessful. He  recovered  from  the  Lombards  several  im- 
portant towns,  including  Perugia,  and  then  returned 
again  to  Ravenna.  Thus  Gregory's  interference  had  pre- 
vailed where  his  petitions  had  failed. 

Meantime  Agilulf,  the  King,  had  succeeded  in  put- 
ting down  the  insurrection  of  the  dukes,  and  he  now 
crossed  the  river  Po,  and  proceeded  with  a  strong  army 
against  Perugia.  After  a  short  siege  the  town  surren- 
dered, and  then  began  the  Lombard  march  on  Rome. 
The  news  of  their  coming  was  heralded  to  the  anxious 
Romans  by  the  arrival  of  straggling  fugitives,  who  in 
several  cases  had  had  their  arms  cut  off  by  the  Lom- 
bards. Then  Gregory  prepared  to  defend  the  city,  but 
for  some  unknown  reason  no  serious  siege  was  under- 
taken, and  Agilulf  led  his  forces  back  to  Milan.  One 
chronicler  tells  us  that  he  did  this,  overcome  by  the 
prayers  and  entreaties  of  Gregory,  who  met  him  on  the 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      257 

I  steps  of  Saint  Peter's.    But  whatever  the  cause  was, 
JAgilulf  retreated. 

For  five  years  longer  Gregory's  life  lasted.  It  was 
the  same  sort  of  life  that  it  had  always  been,  the  same 
activity  as  steward  of  the  Patrimony  of  Saint  Peter, 
peacemaker  between  Lombards,  Exarch,  and  Emperor, 
and  defender  of  the  dignity  of  his  beloved  city  of  Rome. 
We  have  no  time  to  enter  into  his  conflicts  with  the  Em- 
peror Maurice,  regarding  the  questions  as  to  whether 
soldiers  should  become  monks;  or  whether  the  Bishop 
of  Constantinople  should  be  allowed  the  title  of  (Ecu- 
menical or  Universal  Bishop.  We  do  not  need  to  linger 
over  the  sad  spectacle  of  Gregory's  congratulation  to 
Phocas,  who  gained  the  throne,  and  thereupon  murdered 
Maurice  and  his  kindred.  On  March  u,  604,  his  life  of 
action  and  suffering  came  to  an  end.  Like  Paul,  and 
Augustine,  before  him,  he  was  doubtless  a  great  saint, 
but  he  was  unquestionably  a  still  greater  Roman.  He 
had  not  only  saved  Rome  from  the  Lombards ;  he  had 
saved  her  also  from  the  domination  of  the  Eastern  Em- 
pire. Henceforth  Rome  and  the  Bishop  of  Rome  were 
identical ;  and  it  was  only  a  matter  of  time  till  Rome 
should  be  free.  In  point  of  fact,  almost  two  hundred 
years  elapsed  before  the  coronation  of  Charlemagne, 
but  an  empire  which  was  to  last  for  a  thousand  years 
could  not  spring  up  overnight.  At  Gregory's  death 
the  principles,  which  were  to  make  that  empire,  were 
already  implicitly  present. 


258     RELIGIOUS   LIFE  OF  ANCIENT  ROME 

Thus  a  body  politic  was  formed  in  which  the  body 
politic  of  ancient  Rome  could  live  on;  and  thus  was 
fulfilled  the  last  requirement  which  paganism  could  well 
make  of  Christianity,  the  preservation,  not  only  of  her 
culture,  her  content,  but  also  of  her  outward  form.  It  is 
very  easy  to  see  the  evil  which  the  Holy  Roman  Empire 
accomplished;  it  is  not  so  easy  to  realize  the  hopeless, 
helpless  void,  which  its  absence  would  have  caused  — 
but  a  discussion  of  these  things  would  carry  us  beyond 
the  bounds  of  our  present  task. 

Thus  our  experiment  is  complete ;  and  its  main  result 
is  this.  During  the  millennium  and  a  half,  from  the 
foundation  of  Rome  until  the  death  of  Gregory  the 
Great,  we  have  observed  the  presence  of  two  factors :  a 
permanent  religious  need,  and  a  permanent  religious 
supply.  We  have  seen  chronicled  the  rise  of  a  series  of 
instincts:  physical,  patriotic,  superstitious,  individual- 
istic. We  have  seen  their  action  and  reaction ;  we  have 
observed  the  various  beliefs  by  which  they  satisfied  their 
spiritual  hunger.  We  have,  in  a  word,  recognized  the 
normality  of  the  religious  instinct,  even  though  that 
normal  instinct  be  often,  nay,  perhaps  more  often,  used 
abnormally.  Above  all,  we  have  seen  the  great  r61e 
which  religion  of  necessity  plays  in  human  life. 

We  are  confronted  to-day  by  a  very  grave  problem, 
the  so-called  problem  of  socialism;  but  possibly  we  are 
confronted  by  a  still  more  grave  problem,  that  of  lead- 


GREGORY  AND  THE  LOMBARDS      259 

ng  men  to  the  satisfaction  of  that  religious  longing, 
ich  is  quite  as  obvious  a  phenomenon  of  our  present 
[ay  as  is  social  unrest.  And  in  view  of  all  that  we  have 
een  in  these  centuries  of  human  experience,  which  we 
lave  passed  in  review,  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  it 
hould  prove  to  be  the  case  that  these  two  problems  are 
intimately  connected,  and  that  the  normal  relation  of 
ach  man  to  his  brother  men  —  or  such  an  approxima- 
tion to  this  normal  relation  as  will  ever  be  possible  in 
this  present  world  —  can  be  obtained  only  by  establish- 
ing the  normal  relation  of  men  to  those  forces  in  human 
life  which  we  subsume  under  the  rubric  of  religion. 

Nothing  but  good  can  ultimately  succeed;  and  the 
good  of  socialism  lies  in  what  it  can  teach  the  individual. 
It  may  well  prove  to  be  an  expensive  and  painful  way  of 
correcting  and  educating  the  individual ;  but  if  it  is  effi- 
cient, the  world  can  afford  it.  But  we  may  also  find  that 
there  are  ways  of  teaching  these  same  lessons  which  may 
yet  come  into  being,  and  may  work  side  by  side  with  the 
socialistic  pedagogy,  not  eliminating  it  altogether,  but 
teaching  to  many  the  same  lessons  in  a  more  permanent 
and  less  painful  and  extravagant  way. 

For  there  are  religious  forces  at  work  in  the  world,  as 
there  always  have  been ;  and  these  forces  are,  as  always 
intimately  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  day,  our  own 
present  day  with  its  own  peculiar  problems. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abraham,  114. 

Abruzzi,  222. 

Adda,  Battle  of  the,  203. 

Adrianople,  Battle  of,  164. 

Aella,  242. 

^Esculapius,  42  ff. 

yEterne  Rerum  Creator,  155. 

/Etius,  173. 

Agilulf,  237,  238,  256. 

Ahriman,  93. 

Ahura  Mazda,  93. 

Aix,  Council  of,  229. 

Alaric,  164,  165,  167  ff.,  172. 

Alban  Mount,  27. 

Alboin,  235. 

Alemanni,  136. 

Alexander  Severus,  114. 

Alsace,  136. 

Altar  of  Victoria,  152. 

Amalasuntha,  207  ff. 

Ambrogio,  S.,  at  Milan,  156. 

Ambrose,  148  ff. 

Ambrosian  Chant,  155,  189. 

Ammianus  Marcellinus,  1 1 8, 147, 1 70. 

Anastasius,  234. 

Anchorites,  217,  222. 

Andrew,  St.,  245. 

Angelo,  S.,  204,  250. 

Animism,  10,  25. 

Anio,  221. 

Anselm,  238. 

Antiochus  Epiphanes,  99. 

Antony,  85,  100. 

Antony  the  Hermit,  218. 

Apennines,  Battle  of  the,  215. 

Apocrisiarius,  243. 

Apollo,  40,  69,  144. 


Apollo  on  the  Palatine,  67. 

Apollo,  Pythian,  46. 

Apollonius  of  Tyana,  76,  122. 

Apologia  of  Justin  Martyr,  in,  112. 

Appius  Claudius,  37. 

Aqua  Claudia,  206  ff. 

Aqua  Virgo,  206. 

Aqueducts,  206,  207,  213. 

Aqueducts  cut  by  the  Goths,  212. 

Aquileia,  164,  173. 

Ara  Maxima,  130. 

Ara  Pacis,  67. 

Arcadius,  159. 

Arianism,  154. 

Ariccia,  27. 

Aristotle,  182. 

Ariulf,  256. 

Aries,  228. 

Aries,  Council  of,  1 1 8. 

Ascetics,  217. 

Assyrians,  99. 

Athalaric,  207  ff. 

Athanasius,  Agent  of  Justinian,  211. 

Attalus,  Emperor  of  Rome,  168. 

Attalus  of  Pergamon,  46. 

Attila,  172  ff. 

Audoin,  234. 

Augurs,  53,  54. 

Augury,  29  ff. 

Augustine,  Bishop  of  Canterbury, 

252.  ^ 
Augustine,    Bishop  of   Hippo,   58, 

123,  155,  162  ff.,  177  ff. 
Augustus,  65  ff. 
Aurelian,  80,  81. 
Aurelian's  wall,  165,  212. 
Autun,  136. 


264 


INDEX 


Auxentius,  Bishop  of  Milan,  149. 
Auxerre,  Bishop  of,  245. 
Aventine,  27,  29. 
Avignon,  165. 

Babylon,  19,  99. 

Bacchanalian  Conspiracy,  56,  57. 

Barbarian  Invasions,  159. 

Bardengau,  234. 

Bartolommeo  S.,  42. 

Basil,  220. 

Basilica  Julia,  67. 

Baching,  213. 

Battaces,  55. 

Bede's  Ecclesiastical  History,  239, 

242,  253. 

Belgrade,  164,  200. 
Belisarius,  208  ff. 
Bellona,  55. 
Benedetto,  S.,  221. 
Benedict  of  Nursia,  198  ff.,  216  ff. 
Benedict  the  First,  Pope,  243. 
Benedictine  monks,  221  ff. 
Biology  and  History,  95  ff. 
Blackstone,  208. 
Boethius,  207. 
Bologna,  21. 
Bolsena,  Lake  of,  209. 
Boniface,  175. 
Booth,  General,  77. 
Boulogne,  91. 
Burgundy,  174. 
Busento,  169. 

Caelian  Hill,  106,  239. 

Caesar,  52. 

Csesaria,  Abbess,  229. 

Calabria,  169. 

Calendar,  Confusion  in  the,  54. 

Caligula,  85. 

Campagna,  205,  213. 

Campania,  254. 

Campus  Martius,  40,  43,  81. 


Canossa,  157. 

Canterbury,  252. 

Capitoline,  25. 

Cappadocia,  132,  138. 

Caracalla,  28,  79,  113. 

Carmen  Saeculare,  43. 

Carnuntum,  89. 

Carthage,  182,  211. 

Cassicium,  191. 

Cassiodorus,  205,  228  ff. 

Castor  and  Pollux,  39,  40,  130. 

Castra  Peregrinorum,  106. 

Catacombs,  113. 

Celsus,  no  ff. 

Ceres,  41. 

Chaldaeans,  99. 

Chalons-sur-Marne,  173. 

Charlemagne,  205,  257. 

Cicero,  Jerome's  love  of,  146. 

Cicero,  Murder  of,  203. 

Cicero's  Hortensius,  183. 

Cilician  Pirates,  50. 

Cimbri,  55. 

Circus  Maximus,  41,  215. 

Citizenship,  Restrictions  on,  79. 

City  of  God,  193  ff. 

Civilitas,  204. 

Civitel  Castellana,  26. 

Clairvaux,  230. 

Claudius,  105. 

Clement,  249. 

Cleopatra,  85. 

Cleph,  237. 

Clivus  Scaurus,  241. 

Cologne,  136. 

Colosseum,  Last  games  in  the,  165  ff. 

Comitatus,  200. 

Commodus,  92. 

Compos  voti,  13. 

Confessions  of  Augustine,  155,  178. 

Conservatism  in  Religion,  5. 

Constantina,  wife  of  Gallus,  132. 

Constantina,  Empress,  244. 


INDEX 


265 


Constantine,  115  ff. 
Constantinople,  116,  160,  244. 
Constantius,  118,  131  ff. 
Constantius  Chlorus,  115. 
Census,  12. 
Corax,  88. 
Corsica,  165. 
Cosa,  20. 

Cosmas  and  Damianus,  248. 
Cosmopolitanism  versus  Individu- 
alism, 73. 
Crassus,  67. 
Cumae,  38,  40.  . 
Curiae,  n. 
Cybele,  55. 
Cynics,  76. 

Dacia,  91. 

Dalmatia,  254. 

Damasus,  Pope,  153. 

Dante,  238. 

Darwin,  95. 

Decemviri,  46. 

Decius,  Persecution  under,  114. 

Deiri,  242. 

Delphi,  46. 

Demeter,  40. 

Deus  Creator  Omnium,  155. 

Devotio,  13. 

Diana,  27. 

Di  Manes,  12. 

Diocletian,  80. 

Diocletian  and  Mithras,  81,  88. 

Diocletian  and  the  Orient,  71. 

Diocletian's  persecution,  115. 

Dionysius,  Bishop  of  Milan,  149. 

Dionysos,  40. 

Dis,  43. 

Disestablishment  of  Paganism,  151. 

Divus  Julius,  68,  71. 

Dolmens,  7. 

Domitian,  106. 

Druids,  8. 


Elagabalus,  8l. 

El  Gabal,  81. 

Emperor-worship,  70  ff. 

Ennodius,  202. 

Epictetus,  76. 

Epochs  in  religious  history,  33. 

Etruscans,  16  ff. 

Etzel,  174.    t 

Eudoxia,  175. 

Euphemia,  249. 

Eusebia,  Empress,  132,  134. 

Eusebius  of  Nicomedia,  131. 

Falerii,  21,  26. 

Falto,  Marcus  Valerius,  47. 

Farfa,  230. 

Faunus,  12. 

Felsina,  21. 

Fiesole,  21. 

Flagellum  Dei,  174. 

Flamen  Dialis,  53. 

Flamen  Martialis,  53. 

Flamen  Quirinalis,  53. 

Flamines,  53. 

Flavius  Authari,  237. 

Flavius  Odovacar,  201. 

Forum  Boarium,  39,  130. 

Forum  Julii,  235. 

Fourth  Christian  Century,  125. 

Francis,  St.,  76,  222. 

Franks,  136,  159,  236. 

Gaiseric,  175. 

Gaius,  208. 

Gaius  Flaminius,  37. 

Galerius's  edict  of  toleration,  115, 

Gallic  Invasion,  36. 

Callus,  131,  132. 

Gandersheim,  230. 

Garibaldi,  237. 

Gaul,  252,  254. 

Gauls,  36. 

Gene  vie  ve,  173. 


266 


INDEX 


Genius,  u. 

Genius  of  the  Emperor,  70. 

Gepidae,  202. 

Gibbon's  portrayal  of  Julian,  130  ff . 

Giovanni  e^Paolo,  249. 

Gisulf,  235. 

Gordian,  239. 

Goths,  163  ff.,  199  ff. 

Gracchi,  52. 

Gratian,  148  ff. 

Gratian  and  Ambrose,  150  ff. 

Great  Mother  of  the  Gods,  45  ff. 

Gregorio,  S.,  241. 

Gregorovius,  250. 

Gregory  of  Tours,  239,  247. 

Gregory  the  Great,  133,  221,  238  ff. 

Gregory  the  Seventh,  157. 

Gryphus,  88. 

Hadrian,  no. 

Hadrian's  Mausoleum,  212. 

Hannibal,  37. 

Haruspicina,  30. 

Haruspicina  (Babylonian),  19. 

Heddernheim,  89. 

Helena,    Mother    of    Constantine, 

US- 

Helena,  Sister  of  Constantius,  134. 
Heliodromus,  88. 
Henry  the  Eighth,  118. 
Henry  the  Fourth,  157. 
Hercules,  39,  40,  130. 
Hermes,  41. 
Hermits,  217. 
Herod  the  Great,  100. 
Herulians,  201. 
Hippo,  175. 
Hiung-Nu,  170. 
Holy     Roman    Empire,     32,    160, 

245. 

Homer,  180. 

Honorius,  159,  163  ff.,  212. 
Horace,  43,  69,  221. 


Hrotswitha,  230. 

Huns,  159,  164,  170  ff.,  199. 

Illyricum,  254. 

Immortality,  Early  Roman  Concep- 
tion of,  12. 

Immortality,  Longing  for,  74. 

Individualism,  232. 

Individualism,  Rise  of,  64  ff. 

Individualism  versus  Cosmopolitan- 
ism, 73. 

Innocent  the  First,  Pope,  167. 

Instincts,  Permanence  of,  64. 

Investment,  Problem  of,  50  ff. 

Isis,  55,  84  ff. 

Isonzo,  Battle  of,  202. 

Italic  stock,  7  ff. 

Janus,  10,  n. 

Japan,  Bathing  in,  213. 

Jerome,  146. 

Jerusalem,  98  ff. 

Jews,  Julian's  attitude  towards,  143. 

John  the  Deacon,  239. 

Jordanes,  199,  200. 

Judaea,  98  ff. 

Julia  Domna,  122. 

Julian  Alps,  202. 

Julian  the  Apostate,  130  ff. 

Julian's     edict    against    Christian 

teachers,  144  ff. 
Juno,  n,  25. 
Juno  Regina,  68,  249. 
Jupiter,  25,  26,  71,  144. 
Jupiter  Feretrius,  68. 
Jupiter  Libertas,  68. 
Jupiter  Optimus  Maximus,  25,  34. 
Jupiter  Tonans,  68. 
Jupiter  Victor,  34. 
Justin  Martyr,  in  ff. 
Justina  and  Ambrose,  153  ff. 
Justinian,  208  ff.,  234,  235. 
Juventas,  68. 


INDEX 


267 


Kant,  177. 
Kore,  40. 

Labarum,  116. 

Laibach,  164. 

Lanfranc,  238. 

Langobardi,  234. 

Lares  Compitales,  69. 

Lares  "in  summa  sacra  via,"  68. 

Latin  League,  26,  27. 

Latium,  21,  28,  37,  39. 

Legal  Aspects  of  Roman  Religion, 

12  ff. 

Leo  (Mithraic),  88. 
Leo  the  Emperor,  200. 
Leo  the  First,  Pope,  174,  175. 
Lex  Domitia,  53. 
Liber,  41. 
Libera,  41. 
Livy,  46,  47. 

Lombards,  20,  159,  234  ff.,  256. 
London,  91. 
Lorenzo,  S.,  243. 
Luceres,  22. 
Lucian,  77. 

Lucretius,  45,  57,  59  ff. 
Ludi  Saeculares,  69. 
Lupercal,  68. 
Lydian  graves,  18. 
Lyons,  92. 

Mi,  55- 

Magna  Mater,  45  ff.,  68,  81,  84  ff., 

130,  162. 

Manichaeism,  177,  183,  189. 
Mantua,  21. 

Marcellinus  and  Peter,  248. 
Marcus  Aurelius,  76,  81,  no. 
Mardonius,  131. 
Maria  Maggiore,  S.,  249. 
Maria  sopra  Minerva,  S.,  86. 
Marius,  52. 
Mars  Ultor,  67. 


Martin  of  Hungary,  219. 

Massacre  of  Thessalonica,  156. 

Mauriac  Plain,  173. 

Maurice,  Emperor,  257. 

Maurus,  223. 

Maxentius,  116  ff.,  142. 

Mediterranean  Race,  7. 

Megalesia,  48. 

Melpum,  21. 

Mercury,  41. 

Messiah,  102  ff. 

Messina,  211. 

Metaurus,  46. 

Metz,  173. 

Milan,  149,  154  ff.,  165,  173,  186  ff., 

202. 

Miles  (Mithraic),  88. 
Minerva,  25,  26,  68,  144. 
Mithraism,  120  ff.,  139,  177. 
Mithras,  84,  87  ff.,  162. 
Moesia,  91. 
Monastery,    Benedict's    Rule    for, 

221  ff. 

Monasticism,  Rise  of,  219  ff. 
Monica,  178  ff. 
Monte  Cassino,  223,  241. 
Monza,  237. 
Moors,  170. 
Mysticism  in  Rome,  60  ff. 

Naples,  91,  211. 

Narni,  212,  2561 

Narses,  208. 

Nauraghi,  7,  18. 

Nedao,  Battle  of,  199. 

Nemi,  27. 

Neoplatonism,  120  ff.,  139,  177,  189. 

Neopythagoreans,  56. 

Neptune,  41. 

Nero,  1 06. 

Neurasthenia,  72  ff. 

Nicaea,  Council  of,  118. 

Nicsean  Creed,  118. 


268 


INDEX 


Nicomedia,  80. 
Niebelungenlied,  174. 
Nietzsche,  123. 
Nineveh,  248. 
Norba,  20. 
Norcia,  220. 
Noricum,  91. 
Numa,  Books  of,  56. 
Numidia,  178. 
Nuncio,  243. 
Nursia,  220. 

Occidentalizing  of  Christianity,  104 

&. 

Odovacar,  Murder  of,  203. 
Old  Testament,  121,  145  ff. 
Orbetello,  20. 
Oriental  elements  in   Christianity, 

125  ff. 
Origen,  HI. 
Orpheus,  114. 
Orvieto,  21. 
Osiris,  85  ff. 

Ostia,  47,  89,  91,  130,  168,  175. 
Ostrogoths,  159,  164,  199,  233. 

Pachomius,  219. 

Palatine,  29,  55,  69,  81,  205. 

Palermo,  92,  211. 

Pales,  12. 

Palestrina,  256. 

Palladium,  81. 

Palmyra,  80. 

Pannonia,  91. 

Paris,  137. 

Pater  (Mithraic),  88. 

Patricius,  178. 

Patriotism,  Reawakening  of,  67. 

Paul,  St.,  103  ff. 

Paul  the  Deacon,  238  ff. 

Paul  the  Hermit,  218. 

Pa  via,  204. 

Pax,  226. 


Pear-tree  Pass,  164. 
Pelagia,  the  Penitent,  218. 
Pelagius  the  Second,  Pope,  243, 

246. 

Penates,  68. 
Persephone,  43. 
Perses  (Mithraic),  88. 
Perugia,  21,  212,  256. 
Pessinus,  46. 

Peter,  agent  of  Justinian,  211. 
Peter,  St.,  106. 

Philosophers,  Expulsion  of,  56. 
Philostratus,  122. 
Pisa,  91. 
Placidia,  170. 
Placidus,  223. 
Plato,  141. 
Plautus,  38. 
Pliny,  107  ff. 
Pluto,  43. 
Po,  21,  36,  256. 
Pomerium,  27,  28,  39,  40. 
Pompey,  50,  52,  100. 
Ponte  S.  Angelo,  204,  205. 
Pontiffs,  53. 

Pontine  Marshes,  205,  211. 
Pontius  Pilate,  100. 
Porta  Asinaria,  211,  214. 
Porta  Capena,  22. 
Porta  Flaminia,  211,  214. 
Porta  Ratumenna,  22. 
Porta  Salaria,  169. 
Portian  Basilica  in  Milan,  154. 
Poseidon,  41. 
Predil  Pass,  235. 
Prefect  of  Rome,  240. 
Priest,  Legal  functions  of,  14. 
Priesthoods,  Reform  of,  140  ff. 
Prima  Porta,  67. 
Propertius,  67. 
Proserpina,  43. 
Protasius  and  Gervasius,  248. 
Ptolemies,  99. 


INDEX 


269 


Pyrrhus,  37. 
Pythagoras,  141. 

Quedlinburg,  230. 
Quindecemviri,  53. 
Quirinus,  68. 

Radagaisus,  166. 

Ramnes,  22. 

Ravenna,  164,  203  ff.,  256. 

Reggio,  211. 

Religio  Illicita,  107. 

Religion,  Interest  in,  95. 

Religion,  Revival  of,  3. 

Renunciation,  Gospel  of,  75. 

Repetition  in  History,  49. 

Rex  Sacrorum,  53. 

Rheims,  173. 

Rhine,  173. 

Robigo,  12. 

Rom,  31. 

Roma  Sterna,  I,  66. 

Romanianus,  189. 

Romanus,  Exarch,  256. 

Romanus,  Friend  of   Benedict,  222. 

Rome,  Attacks  on,  21  ff.,  36,  160  ff., 

I75»   176,    194,  212,  213. 

Romulia  gens,  22. 
Romulus,  22,  43. 
Romulus  Augustulus,  201. 

Sabina,  S.,  246. 

Salvation  Army,  77. 

Salvation  by  faith,  64,  82  ff. 

Salvation  by  knowledge,  64  ff. 

Sardinia,  165,  254. 

Saturn,  12. 

Saul  of  Tarsus,  102. 

Save,  164. 

Saxa  Rubra,  117. 

Saxons,  238. 

Scandinavia,  174. 

Scepticism,  231. 


Sceptics  (see  Skeptics)/ 

Scipio,  Publius  Africanus,  46,  47. 

Scyllacaeum,  228. 

Second  Triumvirate,  85. 

Seleucidae,  99. 

Senate,  Conservatism  of,  129. 

Seneca,  75  ff. 

Sens,  136. 

Sentino,  92. 

Separation  of  East  and  West,  1 60. 

Septimius  Severus,  113. 

Sepulcretum  in  Forum,  9,  22,  23,  39. 

Serapis,  219. 

Servian  Wall,  29,  37. 

Servius  Tullius,  22,  24. 

Seventh  Deacon,  243. 

Severi,  80,  113. 

Sibylline  Oracles,  40  ff.,  42,  162. 

Sicily,  254. 

Simon  Stylites,  218. 

Skeptics,  141. 

Slave  Labor,  51. 

Social  instinct  in  Religion,  9. 

Socialism  and  Religion,  259. 

Spinoza  and  Lucretius,  6 1  ff. 

Spoleto,  92,  212. 

Squillace,  228. 

Stabilitas,  224. 

Stephen,  249. 

Stilicho,  162,  163,  166. 

Stoics,  141. 

Strassburg,  136. 

Stylitae,  218. 

Subiaco,  223. 

Suetonius,  105. 

Sulla,  52. 

Superstitio,  45. 

Superstition,  Religion  of,  33  ff. 

Symmachus,  Friend  of  Augustine, 

152,  153.  186. 
Symmachus,  Friend  of  Boethius, 

207. 
Syracuse,  92,  211. 


270 


INDEX 


Tacitus,  100. 

Tagaste,  178. 

Tarquin,  23,  24. 

Tarquinii,  20. 

Tarracina  (see  Terracina). 

Tarsus,  138. 

Taurobolium,  84  ff.,  97. 

Telemachus,  166. 

Templum,  19,  30. 

Terence,  38. 

Terracina,  47,  205,  211. 

Teutons,  55. 

Thais,  the  Penitent,  218. 

Theodahad,  209  ff. 

Theodora,  208. 

Theodoric,  172,  198  ff. 

Theodosius,  156  ff.,  161. 

Theudelinda,  237,  238. 

Three-fold  Religion,  56. 

Tiber,  8,  22,  42,  47,  245,  246. 

Tiberius,  100. 

Tibullus,  67. 

Tibur,  (see  Tivoli). 

Tities,  22. 

Tivoli,  39,  256. 

Totila,  213  ff. 

Tours,  Battle  of,  209. 

Trajan,  32,  106  ff. 

Trastevere,  221. 

Tusculum,  39. 

Tuscus  Amnis,  22. 

Ulca,  Battle  of,  202. 
Universality  of  Religion,  82  ff. 

Valens,  164. 
Valentinian  II,  153  ff. 
Valentinian  III,  163,  170. 
Vandals,  159,  175,  233. 


Varro,  28,  31,  57  ff. 

Vaticani  Montes,  87. 

Veii,  20,  36. 

Venetia,  235. 

Veni  Redemptor  Gentium,  155. 

Venice,  Foundation  of,  174. 

Verecundus,  191. 

Verona,  202,  235. 

Vesta,  10,  81. 

Vestal  Virgins,  151. 

Via  Appia,  37,  205. 

Via  Flaminia,  37. 

Via  Latina,  211,  223. 

Via  Salaria,  8,  36. 

Vicenza,  235. 

Vicovaro,  223. 

Victoria,  34. 

Victoria  in  the  Senate,  152. 

Victoria  temple  on  Palatine,  48. 

Villach,  235. 

Virgil,  67,  1 80. 

Visigoths,  159,  163  ff.,  194,  233. 

Viterbo,  256. 

Volaterrse,  20. 

Volsinii,  21. 

Votum,  13. 

Vulgate,  146. 

Wales,  91. 
Walls,  27,  29,  37. 
Walls,  Prehistoric,  20. 
Westminster,  230. 
Winili,  234. 
Witigis,  211  ff. 

York,  91,  229. 

Zeno,  the  Emperor,  201. 
Zenobia,  80. 


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